Ken Skupski and Colin Fleming won their second ATP World title of the season at the $663.75k St Petersburg Open in Russia at the weekend
The British pair defeated the French pair of Richard Gasquet and Jeremy Chardy 2-6, 7-5, 10-4, a victory that has seen them achieve a World ranking of No.50 and 53 respectively.
The win in Russia follows swiftly from the recent win at the € 106.5 ATP Challenger event in Orleans (FRA) and their first ATP World title of 2009 in Metz.
“We won last week as well (in the Orleans Challenger) and we’re on a great run. Today’s match was interesting because it was similar to the Metz final in lots of ways. Even though we were down we knew we’d been in that position before and we just hung in there and we actually started to play ourselves into form towards the end.” said Skupski afterwards.
After defeating the tournament No.3 seeds Rohan Bopanna (IND) and Travis Parrott (USA) in the opening round in Russia, the pair continued to impress throughout the week including victory over World No.10 Andy Ram (ISR) and partner Jonathan Erlich (ISR) in the semi-finals before beating Gasquet and Chardy in the final.
It has been a breakthrough year for the pair, in which they sight the victory over World No.3 Bob and Mike Bryan (USA) at the AEGON Championships as the turning point in their season. "Our mentality going into matches changed after that and we started to feel like we belonged there. Now we’re not fearing anybody we play and I feel like we can beat anybody in the world now” Skupski enthused.
“We’re on the verge of the top 50 now, with Ross Hutchins just ahead of us. You’ve got Jamie Murray doing better and then there’s Jonny Marray as well and he’s just broken into the top 100 too. It’s great for British tennis that we’re getting guys into the top 100 and we all strive to be as successful as possible, not just nationally but internationally as well.
You only need to look at the women’s game in Britain to see that – you’ve got a group of them all trying to see if they can catch Anne (Keothavong) and all fighting to be the best. That situation is very good for the game.”
Fleming added: "This last part of the season has certainly exceeded my expectations. I think we both expected to end the year ranked a lot higher than we started but I think we’ve ended the year with a changed belief. We know what we are capable of now. We’ve beaten some of the top pairs this year and that gives us great hope for the future.”