CALVIA, June 24, 2021
Novak Djokovic has returned to a doubles final for the first time in 11 years. Alongside Spaniard Carlos Gomez-Herrera, the singles World No. 1 defeated No. 3 seeds Oliver Marach from Austria and Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi of Pakistan 6-3, 7-6(4) on a sunny and hot Thursday afternoon at the Mallorca Country Club in Santa Ponca, Calvia.
The wild card entries saved all three break points they faced and won nine points more than their opponents to prevail after one hour and 20 minutes.
3 down, 1 to go 👀@DjokerNole & @xarlygomez beats Marach/Qureshi 6-3 7-6 to reach the doubles final at @MallorcaChamps pic.twitter.com/vMjt7QLw4Z
— Tennis TV (@TennisTV) June 24, 2021
Djokovic, ranked World No. 220 in doubles, captured his lone ATP Tour Doubles title together with Jonathan Erlich from Israel also on grass at The Queen’s Club in London 2010. Three years earlier, he teamed up with Czech Radek Stepanek to reach the final in Adelaide, Australia.
Gomez-Herrera will appear in his first title match. “For me it is a pleasure playing with him,” Doubles World No. 258 Gomez-Herrera said during their post-match on-court interview. “We are so relaxed on court, just enjoying. We know that when we play like this, we can win, and it happened. We are in the final.”
Djokovic added: “We didn’t expect to reach the finals but we served and returned very good and also had a quite solid net game. All around, everything clicked amazingly in the last several days for us. I am just super thrilled to share the court with him and playing our first finals together.”
The pair will play for the title against either No. 4 seeds Simone Bolelli from Italy and Maximo Gonzalez of Argentina or No. 2 seeds Marcus Daniell from New Zealand and Austria’s Philipp Oswald.
