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Murray and Soares honoured at The O2


After their semi-final defeat against Raven Klaasen and Rajeev Ram, the world No.1 doubles pair of Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares were presented with the trophy to celebrate their season ending ranking.

It was not the fairytale end to the season the British-Brazilian pair might have wished for defeated as they were 6-1 6-4 in an hour by the seventh ranked pair Klaasen and Ram.

Murray and Soares, who got together as a pair earlier at the start of the season, came into London 575 ranking points behind No.1 team Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut. The French pair however lost all three of their round robin matches while Murray and Soares won all three of theirs. The two-time Grand Slam champions defeated Treat Huey and Max Mirnyi 6-4 7-5, the Bryan brothers 6-3 6-4 and in a match that was decided by a third set champions tiebreak they defeated Ivan Dodig and Marcelo Melo.

It was in Sydney during the second week of the 2016 season that Murray and Soares won their first match together. They went on to win the Australian Open, dropping only two sets en route to the title and added a second Grand Slam at the US Open, defeating Herbert and Mahut in the semi-finals and Pablo Carreno Busta and Guillermo Garcia Lopez in the final.

Jamie Murray became the first Briton to rank No.1 in the ATP Rankings (singles or doubles) on April 4 and held the spot for nine weeks. His brother Andy Murray became world No. 1 in singles on November 7.

Commenting on finishing the year ranked No.1 Jamie Murray said: “I think we can be really proud of our efforts this year. It’s not easy to make a partnership work, I think. We did a great job. I think we got on great the whole time. We worked hard for each other, tried to improve ourselves and as a team. I think we’ve got lots to look forward to next year.”

And on receiving a trophy having just lost a match, Murray said: “It’s a weird feeling, It’s just life isn’t it. We lost but they did a nice presentation. We can be happy with our efforts this year.”

Soares added: “It’s worse to get an award after you lose a match, but we knew it could happen. But we had an amazing year, a very special year for both of us.”

The match at the O2 Arena was scheduled after Andy Murray’s marathon semi-final match against Milos Raonic, so older brother Jamie had to watch while the pair waited to go on court. “It was stressful. I’m sure everyone watching was finding it pretty tense,” Jamie said. “Obviously not an easy situation to watch and then have to go on court and play. It’s not the first time that’s happened. It’s just tough to have to deal with it.”

 

 

 

 


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Tim Farthing, Tennishead Editorial Director & Owner, has been a huge tennis fan his whole life. He's a tennis journalist and entrepreneur as well as playing tennis to a national standard. He also helps manage his local club and volunteers for his local tennis organisation. He's a specialist in content about the administration of professional tennis and tennis coaching for all levels.