 Fleming and Skupski will now enter the world doubles top 100 |
British doubles pair Colin Fleming and Ken Skupski clinched their first ATP Tour doubles title at the Open de Moselle in Metz, France, on Sunday. The duo won a champions tie-break 10-5 against French pair Arnaud Clement and Michael Llodra after the first two sets were shared 2-6 6-4. The victory pushes Scotland's Fleming up to 79 in the doubles world rankings, while England's Skupski goes to 76. Fleming and Skupski were not used in Britain's Davis Cup defeat by Poland. World number three Andy Murray and Ross Hutchins were chosen ahead of them to play in the doubles but lost, with GB ultimately losing the tie 3-2 and suffering relegation to Davis Cup Group Two.  | We always knew that we were capable of beating top guys |
Fleming and Skupski had booked their places in the Metz final with a 6-1 6-4 win over Germany's Philipp Kohlschreiber and Philipp Petzschner, who had beaten British pair Hutchins and Jordan Kerr in the quarter-finals. "This is our first ATP title and no-one can ever take that away from us," said Fleming, from Linlithgow. "But in terms of the long-term plan, the ranking points are so important because it means we're closer to playing ATP-level events all the time, which is where we want to be. "We were just pleased to get into the main draw because we've spent weeks going to ATP event after ATP event and being bottom of the list of entrants and not getting in. We kept working hard though and kept patient and eventually it happened for us. "We got off to a rough start in the final, through a combination of them playing really well and us being a little bit overawed. We'd played all our matches on the second court and the final was on the stadium court and it was a very different atmosphere, it was very noisy. | 606: DEBATE |
"We had a lot of tough matches this week - we won our second round 11-9 in the tiebreaker and we could easily have lost that one, so to win the title is amazing." Skupski, from Liverpool, added: "This is our first direct acceptance at ATP World Tour level. In the three that we've played we've beaten the Bryan brothers and Melo-Sa, who are top 20. So we always knew that we were capable of beating top guys. "These guys (Clement-Llodra) are very good and they outplayed us from the start but we kept plugging away and we found a way to get back into it and then we felt we had a chance. "We tried to influence the Match tie-break early and we were fortunate to do so. We feel like we've got a good chance to break into the top 50 now." It has been a good week for British players, with Jamie Murray and Jamie Dalgado winning their third title in five weeks. They lifted the ATP Challenger title in Ljubljana, Slovenia, beating Stephane Robert and Simone Vagnozzi 6-3 6-3 to take Murray to 97th in the doubles rankings and Delgado to 120th. Top seed Gael Monfils of France ended a four-year title drought with a 7-6 (7-1) 3-6 6-2 victory over Philipp Kohlschreiber of Germany in the Metz singles final.
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