The pair formed by the Catalan Marcel Granollers and the Argentine Horacio Zeballos, in an epic duel in which they had to save four match points, beat the pair made up of the Polish Jan Zielinski and the Monegasque Hugo Nys by 4-6, 6- 2 and 16-14, he reached the semifinals of the Masters 1000 Madrid doubles and became number one in the world.
The Spanish-Argentine duo took an hour and a half to overcome the clash against Zielinski and Nys. They will compete for a place in the final against the team formed by the Uruguayan Ariel Behar and the Czech Adam Pavlasek who beat the Americans Jackson Withrow and Nathaniel Lammons, sixteenth seeds, by 6-3, 4-6 and 10-4.
“I have been dedicating myself to this for many years. There have been good moments and hard times, very hard and difficult defeats, but Horacio and I have continued despite everything, I thank him because there is strength in unity and we achieved it,” the Catalan tennis player said excitedly on the court.
Granollers thanked his entire team for the support and effort they have offered at all times. “We are all a team and we have done a great job together and we have achieved it,” he insisted.
Horacio Zeballos, for his part, joked: “If my wife doesn’t get jealous, I’m going to propose to her. She is a fantastic partner,” he said.
The couple of Granollers and Zeballos, already consolidated, aspire in Madrid for the first title of 2024. They have been finalists this year in the Masters 1000 in Indian Wells, Buenos Aires and Auckland. Twice finalists at Wimbledon and once at the United States Open, they intend, as a team, to recover the crown in the Caja Mágica that they achieved in 2021 and raise their harvest of success to nine titles.
In any case, they have secured first place in the ATP ranking in doubles. They will appear at the top in Monday’s rankings. Granollers, the only surviving Spaniard in the Masters 1000 Madrid, will be the fourth Spaniard to reach world number one in this modality after Joan Gisbert and Manolo Orantes, in 1975 and Emilio Sánchez Vicario, in 1989.
On the other side of the draw, the British Jamie Murray and the New Zealander Michael Venus will play with the Americans Sebastian Korda and Jordan Thompson. Murray and Venus beat the French Sadio Doumbia and Fabien Reboul by 0-6, 6-4 and 10-2 while Korda and Thompson left the Italians Andrea Vavassori and Simone Bolelli, twelfth favorites, out of the tournament by 7-6 ( 4) and 6-4.
