Players

2009 Preview

ATP World Tour doubles is set to deliver another riveting season in 2009 with a deep roster of world-class teams battling for the No. 1 spot in the Doubles Rankings.

Daniel Nestor and Nenad Zimonjic will be the team to beat in 2009, having snapped Bob and Mike Bryan's three-year hold on the top spot in a dramatic winner-take-all Tennis Masters Cup final. The two new fathers – Zimonjic welcomed twins Leon and Luna on December 3 and Nestor celebrated daughter Tiana's birth two weeks later – will attempt to improve upon last season's five-title effort, which also included the Wimbledon crown.

The 30-year-old Bryans, who also won a circuit-best five titles including the Grand Slam triumph at the US Open, begin 2009 just one away from clinching their 50th team's title. They finished as the No. 1 team in four of the past six years, putting together their most dominant showing in 2007 when they collected 11 titles.

Other established tandems expected to challenge for the No. 1 team ranking include Australian Open doubles champions Jonathan Erlich and Andy Ram, second-year duo Mahesh Bhupathi and Mark Knowles, South Africans Jeff Coetzee and Wesley Moodie, Madrid Masters winners Mariusz Fyrstenberg and Marcin Matkowski and US Open finalists Lukas Dlouhy and Leander Paes.

Zimbabwean doubles veteran Kevin Ullyett, who played alongside Jonas Bjorkman for the Swede's final season, partners up-and-coming Brazilian Bruno Soares as one of the new doubles teams to watch in 2009. Ullyett and Soares already boast an impressive track record to their young partnership, winning the Nottingham title and reaching the Washington final in their only two previous appearances together.

Czech veterans Martin Damm and Pavel Vizner, who have parted ways after one year, each make their partnership debuts alongside Swedish players in 2009. Damm, currently No. 4 on the list of active doubles match win leaders with 532 victories, will join forces with Robert Lindstedt. The 38-year-old Vizner will play on the same side of the net as Simon Aspelin, against whom he lost to in the 2007 US Open final.

Meanwhile, Aspelin's former partner Julian Knowle will rejoin forces will fellow Austrian Jurgen Melzer. The two left-handed Davis Cup teammates have won two titles together, in 2005 at St. Petersburg and in 2006 at Casablanca.

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