Nikola Mektic and Mate Pavic’s hunt for a maiden title at the Cinch Championships in London came close to ending at the quarter-final stage on Thursday, but the second seeds dug deep in a Match Tie-break to sneak past John Peers and Filip Polasek at the ATP 500 event.
Mektic and Pavic fended off a match point for their opponents at 8/9, reeling off three points in a row to seal a dramatic one-hour, 36-minute victory. The all-Croatian duo is chasing a third title on grass in the United Kingdom, having triumphed in Eastbourne and at Wimbledon in 2021.
Their semi-final opponents at The Queen’s Club will be Taylor Fritz and Tommy Paul, who completed a 6-4, 6-4 win against Alex de Minaur and Cameron Norrie.
Lloyd Glasspool and Harri Heliovaara upset top seeds Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury for the second time this season in the other quarter-final played on Thursday. The British-Finnish pairing defeated the world’s top-ranked pairing in Rome in early May, and they proved too good again on the grass in London, running out 7-6(8), 6-2 winners to book a semi-final against Rohan Bopanna and Denis Shapovalov.
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Seeded Pairings Dominate In Halle
At the Terra Wortmann Open in Halle, the top four seeded pairings all booked semi-final spots with straight-sets victories on Thursday.
Marcel Granollers and Horacio Zeballos broke serve once in each set to overcome Santiago Gonzalez and Andres Molteni. The top seeds are chasing their seventh tour-level title together in Germany, but are yet to lift a trophy on grass. They will next face the fourth-seeded pairing of Ivan Dodig and Austin Krajicek, after the Roland Garros finalists ousted Andrey Golubev and Maximo Gonzalez, 7-6(3), 6-2.
There was quarter-final heartbreak for home favourites Kevin Krawietz and Andreas Mies, who fell to fellow German Tim Puetz and his partner Michael Venus. Puetz and Venus broke in the 12th game of each set to prevail 7-5, 7-5.
Puetz and Venus, the latter of whom won the Halle title in 2019 alongside Raven Klaasen, will take on the in-form second seeds Marcelo Arevalo and Jean-Julien Rojer. The Roland Garros champions extended their winning streak to eight with a 6-3, 6-2 win against Yannick Hanfmann and Jan-Lennard Struff.
