Daniel Nestor and Nenad Zimonjic defeated Simon Aspelin and Wesley Moodie 6-4, 6-4 to win Madrid Open, their fourth clay-court title in five weeks! The pair have won 16 of their past 17 matches and have wrested top spot in the world rankings back from Americans Bob and Mike Bryan.

"We don't take anything for granted - we're on a great streak but we've had a lot of matches where there's only one or two points in it," said Nestor. "Win or lose, we continue to put in the work. We've found our form and we know what it takes to win. We're on a roll going into a Grand Slam and hopefully we can keep it going there. We had an unfortunate loss in the final last year so hopefully we can avenge that."

"It's a great feeling. I don't remember having this much success at the big tournaments," said Zimonjic. "It's my first win in Madrid. I can now say I've won everything except Roland Garros on clay. Hopefully we can go one step further in Paris this year."


This was the seventh final of the season for Nestor and Zimonjic. They reached back-to-back finals in the opening two weeks of the year, finishing runner-up at Doha (l. to M. Lopez-Nadal) and Sydney (l. to Bryans) before winning their first title of 2009 the following month in Rotterdam (d. Dlouhy-Paes). They have compiled a 26-7 match record on the season.

Yesterday, it took only 32 minutes for Nestor and Zimonjic to win the first set and 71 minutes to finish the match.

"It was tough conditions because of the wind but we capitalised on our break point chances," commented Nestor. "We played them in Barcelona in the semis and had a really tough match with them there so we knew they were tough. We know what they are capable of - they both serve well and make you play a lot of shots. Fortunately for us we were serving well, especially Nenad. We're playing some of our best tennis on clay. On clay I get more time to set up for shots on the baseline which helps me a lot."

Nestor was contesting his 102nd tour-level final and won his 60th title – the most among active players and the joint sixth-best record on the all-time list together with Peter Fleming and Raul Ramirez. For Zimonjic this was his 28th tour-level title in his 49th doubles final appearance.

It was the fourth time that Nestor had won the Madrid title, having previously prevailed in 2002, 2004 and 05 with former long-time partner Mark Knowles. Zimonjic’s previous best result in the Spanish capital was a runner-up finish in 2005 (w/Paes).

"It was a very difficult situation because we lost in Belgrade first round (last week)," said Zimonjic. "Daniel wasn't feeling great at the start of the week. We managed to get through the first few matches. If we hadn't, that would have been a tough task going into the French. The last two matches we played really well and the level of our game increased a lot towards the end of the tournament which is very satisfying looking ahead to Paris."

Nestor and Zimonjic will be the top seeds at the French Open, which begins May 24 with singles competition. The men’s doubles will begin on May 27.


(photo/Jasper Juinen/Getty Images)

Daniel Nestor and Nenad Zimonjic win Madrid Open, their 4th title in 5 weeks!