Nestor-Zimonjic edge out Bopanna-Qureshi in Sydney final

Sydney, Jan 11 (IANS) In their first tournament together in more than a year, the newly re-formed duo of Daniel Nestor and Nenad Zimonjic clinched their 25th tour-level team title with a 7-6(3), 7-6(3) victory over Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi and Rohan Bopanna in the final of the Apia International Sydney tennis tournament here Saturday.

Nestor and Zimonjic ended their full-time partnership at the end of 2010, reuniting briefly for victory at the Swiss Indoors Basel in October 2012. They lifted the trophy in Sydney for the second time, having previously triumphed in 2010.

Bopanna and Qureshi have also reunited this season, following two years apart. The “Indo-Pak” Express was chasing its fifth team title.

“We accomplished our goal of playing a few matches, which is important,” Nestor was quoted as saying by atpworldtour.com.

“We picked up kind of where we left off playing good. It’s as competitive as ever, doubles, and anything can happen obviously. We’re happy about our start.”

Victory takes the 41-year-old Nestor to a new milestone as he joins Australian Todd Woodbridge in third place on the list of Open Era title leaders with 83 trophies. The Canadian is unbeaten at the start of 2014, having joined forces with Mariusz Fyrstenberg last week for victory at the Brisbane International. The left-hander improved to an 83-53 record in tour-level finals after winning his fourth Sydney crown.

The 37-year-old Zimonjic captured his 50th tour-level doubles title, taking him to joint 24th with Emilio Sanchez on the all-time list. The Serb has a 50-31 finals record.

“It’s nice to start with a title,” said Zimonjic. “We didn’t need much (time) playing together to know each other because we played three and a half years together. It’s nice that we continued. The last two tournaments that we played we won; this is the third tournament. It’s a great thing that we managed this.”