Cabal/Farah Presented Year-End ATP Tour No. 1 Doubles Trophy

Colombians Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah were presented with the year-end doubles No. 1 trophy in a special on-court ceremony on Thursday at the Nitto ATP Finals.

“It’s an honour to receive this trophy, being alongside the names on engraved on it,” said Farah, during the presentation. “Starting the year, it was difficult to predict we’d end it as the No. 1 team. It’s a dream come true and I’d like to thank everyone who is here for supporting us.”

“It’s crazy to pick a [standout] moment from the year,” said Cabal. “Coming through the five-hour match we had at Wimbledon, for our first Grand Slam title, is a moment we’ll remember forever.”

They were presented the ATP Tour No. 1 Doubles Team award by Chris Kermode, the ATP Executive Chairman and President, and Tournament Chairman of the Nitto ATP Finals. Cabal and Farah have captured five titles from tour-level finals in 2019, and compiled 49 match wins.

They are the second all-South American team to finish year-end No. 1 (in the history of the ATP Doubles Team Rankings since 1984), following in the footsteps of Chile’s Hans Gildemeister and Andres Gomez of Ecuador in 1986. Brazil’s Bruno Soares was the 2016 year-end No. 1 with Jamie Murray and Soares’ compatriot, Marcelo Melo, finished in top spot with Lukasz Kubot in 2017.

Cabal and Farah captured their first Grand Slam championship crown at The Championships, with a five-hour victory over Nicolas Mahut and Edouard Roger-Vasselin in the Wimbledon final, which saw them rise to joint No. 1 in the ATP Rankings on 15 July 2019. Two months later, the pair clinched their second major trophy at the US Open (d. Granollers/Zeballos).

The players also captured the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell title (d. Murray/Soares) in April, successfully defended the Internazionali BNL d’Italia in Rome (d. Klaasen/Venus) in May, which represented their second ATP Masters 1000 trophy, and won the Nature Valley International in Eastbourne (d. Gonzalez/Zeballos) in June. Cabal and Farah additionally finished runners-up at the Sydney International in January (l. to Murray/Soares) and the Western & Southern Open at Cincinnati (l. to Dodig/Polasek) in August.

from Tennis - ATP World Tour https://ift.tt/375tTGZ