Nikola Mektic and Mate Pavic have clinched the year-end No. 1 ATP Doubles Team Ranking, the association confirmed on Saturday.
Pavic has finished in the top spot twice before, partnering Oliver Marach in 2018 and Bruno Soares last year. This is the first time Mektic has been part of the year-end No. 1 tandem.
The Croatians are the only men from their country to claim year-end No. 1 in singles or doubles. They began the year in top form and never looked back, tallying an impressive nine tour-level titles, including victories at Wimbledon, the Tokyo Olympics and three ATP Masters 1000 events.
"I think it's a really good achievement, especially after the year we had. I was really looking forward to this happening," said Mektic, as per atptour.com. "That was definitely one of the goals when I saw how things were going. I think it's a pretty good achievement to crown the whole year of really nice wins and great tournament titles with the No. 1 ranking," he added.
"I'm extremely happy. Obviously, it's been the third time for me in the past four years with three different partners. It is the first time I've done it with my fellow Croatian, so I think it's definitely a big achievement for us personally, but also in general for Croatian tennis to have a year-end No. 1 team coming from Croatia," said Pavic.
The Croatians won 56 of their first 61 matches in 2021, including Masters 1000 triumphs at the Miami Open presented by Itau, the Monte-Carlo Masters (d. Evans/N. Skupski both times) and the Internazionali BNL d'Italia (d. Ram/Salisbury). Mektic and Pavic made history at Wimbledon, where they became the first all-Croatian team to win a men's doubles Grand Slam title (d. Granollers/Zeballos).
The countrymen did not suffer a let-down at the Tokyo Olympics, where they defeated fellow Croatians Marin Cilic and Ivan Dodig for the gold medal. Mektic and Pavic have also lifted trophies at the ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament in Rotterdam (d. Krawietz/Tecau) and the Viking International Eastbourne (d. Ram/Salisbury) this year.
( With inputs from ANI )
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