Austrian Oliver Marach and Mate Pavic of Croatia have kept their 2018 unbeaten run alive with a nail-biting men’s doubles semifinal win over Ben McLachlan and Jan-Lennard Struff on Thursday at Melbourne Park.
“It’s been amazing so far,” Pavic said. “We were playing good at the end of last year as well, so we came in here with a lot of confidence. You can see it now, how we won the last two matches in final-set tiebreakers, we bring a slight edge over the other guys.”
On the back of title wins in Doha and Auckland, the seventh seeds showed their class, grabbing the barest of opportunities to win the match 4-6 7-5 7-6(4) over the Japanese/German pairing.
“They played an unbelievable match, and if it went the other way they would have fully deserved it,” said Marach, 37.
“We’d love to make it a hat-trick, of course, but just to be in the final is unbelievable, especially in my favourite Grand Slam,” he added.
Marach was a semifinalist here back in 2009 (with Lukasz Kubot) and more recently contended an epic Wimbledon final with Pavic, succumbing 13-11 in the fifth set to Kubot and Marcelo Melo.
Interestingly, their opponents, McLachlan and Struff, were responsible for removing Kubot and Melo from this year’s Australian Open, defeating the current doubles co-world No.1’s and top seeds in the third round.
Again, in Thursday’s semifinal, it was the unseeded first-time pairing who came out firing at Margaret Court Arena, playing a near-flawless first set, creating the contest’s first break point opportunity at a crucial stage late, securing it, and going on to take the opener in 32 minutes. Forcing more errors from Marach and Pavic, they looked completely at home on the big stage of a major semifinal, the first for either of them.
The second set offered more chances for both pairs, but as it reached a climax, it was Marach and Pavic that drew blood, enough to close it out and force a decider.
No clues were offered as to an eventual victor in the final set, and it was clear that the margins would be painfully tight. When Struff netted an easy overhead on break point which would have given his team an opportunity to serve for the match, it seemed pivotal. Indeed, they stared down the barrel the very next game, but were good enough to level and force a final tiebreaker.
With experience a telling factor, Marach and Pavic showed more polish and eventually claimed their place in a second major final, where they will meet first-time Australian Open finalists Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah.
The Colombian No.11 seed handed six-time champions Bob and Mike Bryan their marching orders in the final match of the day on Rod Laver Arena, claiming the only break of the match in the final game against the 39-year-old Americans to seal a 7-6(1) 7-5 victory to the delight of their boisterous compatriots in the stands.