Second-seeded Croatians Nikola Mektic and Mate Pavic improved to 19-2 on the season with a 6-7(3), 7-6(7), 10-6 victory over Frenchmen Jeremy Chardy and Fabrice Martin on Thursday at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships.
So far this season, Mektic and Pavic have lifted ATP Tour trophies at the Antalya Open (d. Vesely/Weissborn), the Murray River Open in Melbourne (d. Brkic/Qureshi) and the ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament (d. Krawietz/Tecau). They also finished runners-up at the Australian Open (l. to Dodig/Polasek).
Top-seeded Colombians Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah saved one match point to book their places in the semi-finals.
Cabal and Farah saved one match point at 8/9 in the Match Tie-break to beat Italian qualifiers Lorenzo Sonego and Andrea Vavassori 6-4, 6-7(7), 11-9. The Colombians recovered from 1-4 down in the second set, but could not convert a match point at 6-5 in the second-set tie-break.