Fourh seeds Jamie Murray and John Peers survived a gruelling encounter in the first match of the ATP Finals by defeating Italian duo Fabio Fognini and Simone Bolelli 7-6 (5), 3-6, 11-9.
The Australian/British pairing got off to a strong start by having two opportunities in the second game of the match to covert an early break. Despite the double chance, they couldn’t convert as the Italians battled back to get themselves on the scoreboard. As the opening set went according to serve, Murray and Peers had another break point opportunity to take the opening set 6-4, but once again they failed to convert as the set went into a tie-break. The closeness between the two teams during the first set continued throughout the tiebreaker until a costly error at 5-5. A double fault from Bolelli allowed their opponents to grab their second set point in which they converted to take the opening set.
Despite taking the first set, Murray and Peers endured a tough task at the start of the second with the Italian duo winning 11 out of the first 15 points to open up a 3-0 lead. The fourth seeds eventually recovered the break in the seventh game by breaking back to love. The work invested by the two to level with the Italians was destroyed in the following game as they were broken for the second time in the set. Leading 5-3, Fognini and Bolelli was able to close out the set to force a super tiebreaker.
Murray and Peers have endured mixed results in tiebreakers this year with a win-loss of 7-13 compared to Fognini and Bolelli who has 4-4. Unlike the singles competition, the final set in the doubles is the first one to get to ten points with a gap of at least two points. The tiebreaker was a roller-coaster encounter for both teams with seven breaks of service. Murray and Peers had their first match point at 9-8 before it was saved by a fast serve out wide from the Italians. The second match point occurred just two points later after a smash from Peers. The duo was successful with their second match point as a return from Fognini failed to make it over the net.
During the thrilling match, which lasted an hour and forty minutes, Murray and Peers won 81% of their first service points and 94% of their second as well as converting 1/4 break points.