In their penultimate Grand Slam appearance together, Mark Knowles and Daniel Nestor won the men’s doubles title on Saturday. The Bahamian and Canadian beat the Czech pairing of Lukas Dlouhy and Pavel Vizner 2-6, 6-3, 6-4 to add the French Open to their 2002 Australian Open and 2004 US Open titles.
It was a case of third time lucky for Knowles and Nestor, who lost here in the 1998 and 2002 finals, both times to the Dutch pairing of Jacco Eltingh et Paul Haarhuis.
Knowles and Nestor are about to go their separate ways, as the Canadian has decided to form a new pairing with Nenad Zimonjic, but they have the chance to complete their Grand Slam trophy collection when they appear for one last time at Wimbledon.
Dlouhy and Vizner therefore failed in their bid to become the first players from the Czech Republic to win a Grand Slam doubles tournament (despite the success that they had on the tour, Tomas Smid and Pavel Slozil never managed to win a "major"). They can, however, console themselves with fact that they knocked out the No.1 seeds Bob and Mike Bryan in the quarters.
The final was played on Philippe Chatrier court in front of a sizeable crowd – no doubt looking for some extra action after the women's final was over in what seemed like the blink of an eye…
