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Americans Eric Butorac and Scott Lipsky won their maiden ATP World Tour doubles team title at their first ATP World Tour tournament as a team on Sunday. The pair defeated fourth seeds Martin Damm of the Czech Republic and Robert Lindstedt of Sweden 6-3, 6-2 in 54 minutes on Central Court.
For World No. 70 Lipsky, the win was poignant. He said: “My girlfriend’s twin sister had a wedding yesterday in Miami. Everyone wanted me to go. I had to go back.
“The first day I had a flight on Wednesday, we won. I changed my flight. We played again on Thursday. I had a flight for Friday evening. We played our semi-final and won. I couldn’t get back for the wedding. I hope I still have a girlfriend! I fly back tonight. Maybe now I made some money, I hope she is happy.”
Lipsky, who improved to 11-7 on the year, reached the Auckland final with Leander Paes in January (l. to Damm-Lindstedt). The 27 year old California resident also improved to 2-6 in ATP World Tour finals. His lone title came in February 2008 at San Jose, with David Martin (d. Bryan-Bryan).
Butorac said: “We played two ATP Challenger Tour tournaments recently, but this was our first on clay courts as a team.
“We didn’t have great expectations. We’d played some practice sets and got killed, but after playing the top seeds [Bruno Soares and Kevin Ullyett] we started to relax and played well.”
World No. 52 Butorac improved to 6-1 lifetime in ATP World Tour finals with his second ATP World Tour trophy of the season. The 27-year-old Minnesota resident partnered Rajeev Ram to the Chennai title (d. Scherrer-Wawrinka) in January. He has an 11-6 season record
“It’s nice to see Americans doing well on clay,” said Lipsky, with reference to James Blake also reaching the Estoril Open singles final. “We have taken a lot of heat over the years.” Butorac added: “Hopefully it’ll carry over to Roland Garros and it will be a good year for the United States.”
Butorac made his Estoril Open debut in 2006, partnering Jamie Murray in a first-round exit (l. to M. Garcia-Prieto0). Lipsky, who also made his tournament debut three years ago with Tripp Phillips, lost to the same pair in the quarter-finals.
Damm and Lindstedt dropped to 17-8 on the 2009 ATP World Tour season. The pair captured two ATP World Tour doubles titles at Auckland (d. Lipsky-Paes) and at Zagreb (d. Kas-Wassen). They also finished runners up at Dubai (l. to de Voest-Tursunov).
The 36-year-old Damm dropped to 39-22 lifetime in ATP World Tour doubles finals, while 32-year-old Lindstedt fell to a 5-5 career record.
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