Playing their last tournament together, Mark Knowles and Daniel Nestor secured their place in the Tennis Masters Cup semifinals despite losing 6-3, 4-6, 11-9 (Match Tie-Break) against Czech duo Lukas Dlouhy and Pavel Vizner on Friday. Knowles and Nestor held one match point at 9-8 in the match tie-break but Dlouhy iced their hopes for a perfect 3-0 sweep of the round-robin stage with a big ace down the middle past a diving Knowles.
Two points later the match was over. On his team's first match point, Dlouhy lobbed over Nestor's head. Incoming server Knowles retreated to scramble the ball back, but Dlouhy hit a winning backhand drop volley cross court to seal the victory.
Both teams finished with a 2-1 win-loss record but Knowles and Nestor advanced because their sets win-loss record for the round-robin stage was 5-3 as opposed to the Czech's 4-4 record. Winning the second set was crucial for Knowles and Nestor, who gave back a break at 5-4 but broke straight back to clinch the set.
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