TENNIS NEWS • COLOMBIA’S CABAL AND FARAH MAKE HISTORY AT NITTO ATP FINALS

Written by: Staff on 15th November 2018

TENNIS NEWS • COLOMBIA'S CABAL AND FARAH MAKE HISTORY AT NITTO ATP FINALS

epa07167797 Columbia's Juan Sebastian Cabal (L) and Robert Farah (R) in action against South Africa's Raven Klaasen and New Zealand's Michael Venus during their men's doubles round-robin match on day five of the ATP World Tour Finals tennis tournament at the O2 Arena in London, Britain, 15 November 2018. EPA-EFE/NEIL HALL |

Columbia’s Juan Sebastian Cabal (L) and Robert Farah (R) in action against South Africa’s Raven Klaasen and New Zealand’s Michael Venus during their men’s doubles round-robin match on day five of the ATP World Tour Finals tennis tournament at the O2 Arena in London, Britain, 15 November 2018. EPA-EFE/NEIL HALL

By J. Fred Sidhu

LONDON – It’s been a historical week for the Colombian doubles team of Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah at the Nitto ATP Finals at O2 Arena.

Cabal and Farah were the first Colombian team ever to qualify for the ATP World Tour season finale and the first South American pair to appear in the tournament since Pablo Cuevas ofUruguay and Luis Horna of Peru reached the semifinals in Shanghai in 2008.

However, the second seeds from Colombia are not finished yet as they completed round-robin action on Thursday evening with a hard-fought 6-3, 7-6 (5) victory over sixth-seeded Raven Klaasen of South Africa and Michael Venus of New Zealand to clinch a spot in Saturday’s semifinals with a 2-1 record in the Llodra Santoro Group.

After winning the first set over Klaasen and Venus in 28 minutes, Cabal and Farah fell behind 3-1 in the second set, but rebounded to win four straight games. Later in the deciding tie-breaker, Cabal, who had been broken at love in the third game of the set, served an ace past Klaasen on the fourth match point to wrap up the victory and the semifinal spot.

It’s been a long journey for Cabal and Farah, who began playing together on the ITF Futures Circuit back in 2004. The Colombian duo took a four-year break when Farah headed to Los Angeles to play collegiate tennis for USC.

The pair reunited in 2010 and has played together since, winning 11 career ATP World Tour doubles titles, including the ATP Masters 1000 in Rome earlier this year. Cabal and Farah have played 340 tour level matches together – the most among the eight doubles teams at the 2018 Nitto ATP Finals.

“It’s a great feeling. We practiced very hard through the year and played a lot of matches to get here. To play the best teams in the world and to get through a group that was very tough is very rewarding,” Farah said after the semifinal clinching victory.

When Cabal was asked what was the key to his successful partnership with Farah, he responded, “It’s no secret. We’re really good friends off the court. We’re like brothers. We’re both from Cali and we left to Bogota when we were 14 or 15 years old. We know the goals we want and we start working together. We enjoy every minute.”

Topics: 02 Arena, 10sballs, Doubles tennis, London, Nitto ATP Finals, Robert Farah, Sebastian Cabal, Sports, Tennis, Tennis10sBalls