Marcelo Melo of Minas Gerais and Ivan Dodig of Croatian are runners-up in the ATP 250 in Adelaide, Australia. In the early hours of Sunday (9), Indians Rohan Bopanna and Ramkumar Ramanathan clinched the title in 1 hour 21 minutes with partial scores of 7/6 (8-6) and 6/1 in 2 sets of 0. Melo and Dodig continue in Australian City for another ATP 250 brawl in preparation for the Australian Open. The tournament starts this Monday (10) and both play as seed 2 due to a first round bye, already debuting in the round of 16.
“It didn’t work out for us today. He played really well. We got a few chances in the first set that we didn’t take advantage of, including a mini break at the front in the tie-break. The game could have been different. But sometimes it comes to our side, sometimes it doesn’t. Then, in the other, they broke into an unusual game, which was 40/0, they returned very well and both did very well Well served, which made it difficult for us to get more opportunities”, explained Marcelo.
It was the first of two ATP 250s – the Adelaide International – that Mello and Dodig play in preparation for the Australian Open. After that, they will be in Melbourne for the first Grand Slam of the year scheduled for the period from 17th to 30th of this month.
Melo is ranked 29th with 2,765 points in the individual world doubles rankings released by the Association of Professional Tennis (ATP) last Monday (3). Dodig is ranked 12th with 5,165 points.
The Brazilian record holder, with 35 wins, with Bruno Soares, from Minas Gerais, and in weeks at the top of the ATP rankings (56), as well as participation in the ATP Finals (he participated in eight consecutive 2020), Marcelo in July He scored a record 500-plus wins on his debut at the ATP 500 in Washington in 2019, making him the 35th player ever to reach that milestone.
In the individual world doubles rankings, Marcelo was in the top 10 for eight consecutive seasons. It was the tenth at the end of 2020. Seventh in 2019. Ninth in the world in 2018, first in 2017 and 2015, eighth in 2016 and sixth in 2013 and 2014.
Marcelo’s first ATP tournament title was in 2007 in Estoril, Portugal. It has two Grand Slams in addition to one runner-up (2013) and one runner-up (2018) in London and two semifinals at the US Open. Marcelo also leads the number of titles in the Masters 1000. In Shanghai 2018 he moved up to ninth place after winning Shanghai (2013 and 2015), Paris (2015 and 2017), Toronto (2016), Cincinnati (2016), Miami (2017). and Madrid (2017).
