Canada’s Daniel Nestor, Serbia’s Nenad Zimonjic win doubles title at Italian Open

ROME – Canadian Daniel Nestor and Serbian partner Nenad Zimonjic claimed a second consecutive clay-court title Sunday as they won the Italian Open 6-4, 7-6 (2) over Dutchman Robin Haase and Spain’s Feliciano Lopez.

The victorious sixth seeds backed up their Madrid trophy of last weekend with Masters 1000 success at the Foro Italico, claiming the title in 84 minutes with eight aces and three breaks of serve.

The pair have now won 27 trophies as a team. They lifted their first of 2014 in January in Sydney and added Madrid and Rome to head into the French Open starting next weekend as favourites.

Toronto’s Nestor has won four Roland Garros titles since 2007, the last one two years ago with former partner Max Mirnyi of Belarus.

Nestor, 41, now owns 85 doubles titles from 140 finals and remains in third place in the post-1968 Open era doubles title leaderboard behind Mike Bryan (100) and Bob Bryan (98).

Nestor and Zimonjic came back quickly after Nestor was broken in the third game of the match, recovering the break for 3-3. They earned the set after 36 minutes with a concluding break.

Zimonjic lost serve early in the second set but two double-faults from Lopez set up break-back points, which were converted for 2-2.

Nestor’s team hung onto their clay momentum as the set moved into a tiebreaker. They earned the victory on the first of four match points.