ATP Finals: Heliovaara/Patten spoil home party, sink Bolelli/Vavassori for spot in doubles final

Turin, Nov 15 (IANS) Harri Heliovaara and Henry Patten banished old heartache at the ATP Finals, the Finnish-British pair getting the best of Simone Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori in style to reach the title match in Turin on Saturday afternoon.

A year after suffering a semifinal exit on debut at the prestigious season finale, Heliovaara and Patten this time marched to a 6-4, 6-3 last-four victory against Simone Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori. The Finnish-British duo produced a stunning all-around display to overwhelm their Italian opponents and nullify the partisan atmosphere inside Inalpi Arena.

“We had to dig deep yesterday, but we were ready for this semifinal,” said Heliovaara. “I think we really enjoyed being out on court. We had more experience, and we just executed exactly what we wanted to do today,” he added.

Patten advancing to the championship match continued Great Britain’s dominance in the doubles competition at this year’s ATP Finals. He and Heliovaara will on Sunday take on an all-British duo in the championship match: Top seeds and Year-End ATP Doubles No. 1 trophy-winning team Julian Cash and Lloyd Glasspool, or Joe Salisbury and Neal Skupski.

Heliovaara and Patten converted the only break point of the opening set at 1-1, 30/40 to move ahead in Saturday’s semifinal, while they also decisively broke serve in the third game of the second. Patten, who started the week in Turin by getting engaged to his partner Ellie Stone, served a double fault at 3-2, 40/30 to gift Bolelli and Vavassori a chance to break at Deuce deciding point, but he followed that with a nerveless lefty serve out wide to clinch the game.

That proved to be the final moment of peril for Heliovaara and Patten on serve, and the pair soon closed out for a 76-minute victory in which they finished the match having won 87 per cent (20/23) of points behind first serves, according to Infosys ATP Stats. They now hold a 3-1 ATP head-to-head series lead over Bolelli and Vavassori, having also prevailed in the two teams’ Australian Open semi-final clash earlier this year.

“Lots of practice. There’s no secret really,” said Patten, when asked about he and Heliovaara’s returning performance. “They are two very good servers. We’ve struggled returning against them in the past. Sometimes you get a bit lucky as well. No secret, just lots of hard work and lots of repetitions, really.”

The 36-year-old Heliovaara and 29-year-old Patten will on Sunday play for their eighth tour-level title as a team, and their second indoor title of the year after they lifted the Paris Masters title earlier this month.

--IANS

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