FILE PHOTO: Tennis – Wimbledon – All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, London, Britain – July 13, 2019 Colombia’s Juan-Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah celebrate winning the men’s doubles final with the trophies against France’s Nicolas Mahut and Edouard Roger-Vasselin REUTERS/Toby Melville
LONDON (Reuters) – Colombian doubles pairing Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah have sealed the ATP end-of-year number one ranking to become only the second all-South American pair to claim the honor.
Victory over Americans John Isner and Sam Querrey at the Shanghai Masters on Wednesday means they cannot be caught.
“It’s been amazing and a crazy run this year,” Cabal said. “It’s unreal, we’re really happy and proud about what we have achieved. We have kept things simple and kept the hunger to achieve this amazing achievement.”
The only other South American pair to finish the year ranked number one since doubles rankings began in 1984 were Chile’s Hans Gildemeister and Andres Gomez of Ecuador in 1986.
Brazil’s Bruno Soares was the 2016 year-end No. 1 with Britain’s Jamie Murray and Soares’s compatriot, Marcelo Melo, finished in top spot with Lukasz Kubot in 2017.
Cabal and Farah won this year’s Wimbledon title to open their Grand Slam account and then repeated at the U.S. Open.
They also won titles in Barcelona, Rome and Eastbourne.
“It is a great achievement and I will be very happy and honoured to receive the year-end No. 1 doubles trophy,” Farah said. “I’ve been dreaming about this forever.”
Reporting by Martyn Herman; Editing by Ken Ferris