Jean-Julian Rojer and Marcelo Arevalo were clearly stronger than Harri Heliövaara and Lloyd Glasspool in the Stockholm ATP final.
15:22•Updated 17:32
Harri Heliövaara and Lloyd Glasspool lost in the doubles final of the ATP 250 tournament in Stockholm For Jean-Julian Rojer and For Marcelo Arevalo 3–6, 3–6.
Rojer, fifth in the doubles world ranking, and sixth, Arevalo, started the final strongly by breaking Heliövaara’s first serve. Arevalo followed up with his own serve, so the pair quickly took a 4–1 lead.
After this, the set progressed evenly as both pairs held their serve. This is how the first-ranked pair of the tournament won the first set 6–3.
– The opponent came to the field with really good energy and attitude. They got off to a really good start to both sets by breaking my serve at the very beginning of both sets. After that, it’s difficult to compete against players of that level, Heliövaara commented after the game.
The beginning of the second set was almost a repeat of the first set. Heliövaara lost his first serve, when the opponent pair certainly won their own service turns.
Heliövaara was frustrated and threw his bat on the field when the second set turned into a 1-2 situation. As the set progressed, Glasspool also lost serve once.
The second set eventually ended with the same score as the first, when the experienced pair won the last remaining Glasspool serve and saw the match end 2-0. The duo, who won clearly more points with their second serve in particular, finally took the final victory after about an hour of play.
– The opponents played freely and we didn’t put them under pressure except for the end of the second set. All credit to them, they played a really great match today, Heliövaara analyzed after the loss.
A successful year despite the final losses
This was Rojer’s 11th time at the Stockholm tournament. Of these, he now has three tournament wins. For Arevalo representing El Salvador, the victory was the first in Sweden.
The top duo Arevalo and Rojas is number three on the doubles list. Although the pair is in their first year playing together, they have already won four tournaments. The sweetest of them was the Grand Slam championship in the summer at the French Open.
Despite the losses in the finals, a strong year has raised both Heliövaara’s and Glasspool’s ranking in the doubles world rankings. Heliövaara is ranked 16th and Glasspool ranked 19th in the world list to be published tomorrow.
– There have been several finals this year, which has also brought a lot of ranking points. Of course, it would be nice to win more of these, Heliövaara summed up his busy year.
The final in Stockholm was the seventh ATP final of the Finnish-British duo this year. The pair has won one of these, in Hamburg in July.
– In the finals, you always face the best opponents, which you have to respect. Maybe after a long week, there may be some lack of accuracy, which can be seen in small things. We just have to be even more precise and train hard so that in the future the finals will be ours, Heliövaara analyzes in his calm style.
The Finnish-British pair will next continue to Basel for the ATP 500 competition. The duo is currently also on the way to the Turin ATP final tournament, where eight of the world’s best-ranked doubles pairs will be included. Heliövaara and Glasspool are number six on the list.
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