John Isner and Jack Sock capped off the best week of their short-lived doubles team career by winning one of the game’s biggest titles on Sunday at the Shanghai Rolex Masters.

The American duo won their first ATP World Tour Masters 1000 team crown, defeating Henri Kontinen and John Peers 6-4, 6-4 in 62 minutes. Isner/Sock dominated with their serves, as they have all tournament long in the Chinese city. They won 78 per cent of their service points (40/51) and never faced a break point.

Returning serve, Isner/Sock were opportunistic. An Isner overhead handed them their first break for a 3-2 lead in the first set. They converted their second service break for a 4-3 advantage in the second set when an Isner forehand was too much for Kontinen to handle at the net.

The victory gives Sock his second ATP World Tour Masters 1000 doubles crown and his seventh overall ATP World Tour doubles title. He and Canadian Vasek Pospisil took the BNP Paribas Open title last season at Indian Wells. Sock had been 0-3 in doubles finals this season. The 24 year old is the only player ranked in the Top 25 of both Emirates ATP Rankings – No. 25 in singles, No. 23 in doubles.

Isner hadn’t played in a doubles final since the 2012 BNP Paribas Open. His last doubles title came when he was playing with compatriot Sam Querrey in 2011 at the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 event in Rome. The 6’10” Isner has now won four ATP World Tour doubles titles. The champions will split 1,000 Emirates ATP Doubles Rankings points and $323,100.

Kontinen/Peers were looking to further bolster their place in the Emirates ATP Doubles Race To London by winning their fourth title of the season. The Finnish/Australian pairing are currently in seventh place, 245 points ahead of eighth-placed Treat Huey and Max Mirnyi. The top eight doubles teams at the end of the season will qualify for the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals, to be held 13-20 Nov. at The O2 in London.

Kontinen/Peers had been 3-0 in ATP World Tour doubles finals this season, snagging trophies in Brisbane, Munich and Hamburg. They will receive 600 Emirates ATP Doubles Rankings points and $158,190.

Despite retiring seven years ago, Guillermo Coria is still in peak physical shape. Watching him walk, there’s little difference between the 34-year-old Coria today and the 18-year-old teenager who won four consecutives Challenger titles to make his debut inside the Top 100 of the Emirates ATP Rankings in November 2000.

The former World No. 3 still vividly remembers winning the ATP Challenger Tour title that month in his hometown of Buenos Aires. Facing former World No. 8 Alberto Berasategui in the final, Coria delighted the local crowd by prevailing in a deciding set. He said the match, and in his time overall in Challengers, was pivotal in setting him up for the outstanding ATP World Tour career he went on to have.

“I owe everything to Challengers. Having a circuit of Challenger tournaments in South America was so fundamental for me,” said Coria, speaking from this week’s $50,000 event in Buenos Aires. “Alberto had so much experience, but I had the whole crowd on my side. Winning a tournament at home against a player at that level gives you so much motivation for what can happen next. When I played the final of the Argentina Open against Carlos Moya, I was ready because the Challenger there had given me experience in handling that type of pressure.”

Coria made an appearance this Thursday at the Challenger in Buenos Aires to give a kids’ clinic and observe some of the rising stars in South American tennis. From his own experience, both the tournament venues in Buenos Aires and the city itself have all the ingredients to spur on the best tennis from players.

“The stadium was always full. Even as a Challenger, it always felt like an ATP World Tour event,” said Coria. “Having those experiences gives you a lot of confidence and helps you grow as a player.”

The 34-year-old Coria is confident that the growing brigade of Argentine players in Challengers will also continue to benefit from those experiences. Argentina has produced nine Challenger winners this year that have combined to win 15 singles titles.

“It’s very impressive, but I think this trend will continue and having Argentina in the Davis Cup final this year will only help that further,” said Coria. “Argentine tennis is very strong now and these group of players deserve it. They haven’t been handed anything and have had to fight for it all.”

Ivan Dodig and Marcelo Melo are the fifth team to qualify for the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals following the completion of sign-in on-site at the If Stockholm Open, the European Open in Antwerp and the VTB Kremlin Cup in Moscow.

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The Croatian/Brazilian duo will return to The O2 for a fourth successive appearance. They have an 8-5 record at the year-end championships, finishing runners-up in 2014 (l. to Bryans) and reaching the semi-finals in 2013 (l. to Marrero/Verdasco) and 2015 (l. to Bopanna/Mergea).

Dodig and Melo, who did not compete in Shanghai this week while Dodig played an ATP Challenger Tour singles event in Tashkent, have put together another stellar season and are fourth in the year-to-date standings.

A semi-final showing at Roland Garros kick started a strong summer for the duo. They went on to reach their first final of the season in Nottingham (l. to Inglot/Nestor) and won back-to-back ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournaments in Toronto (d. Murray/Soares) and Cincinnati (d. Rojer/Tecau).

Three places remain up for grabs in the elite eight-team field. There are three weeks left of the regular season, which will decide the Emirates ATP Doubles Race To London. Sixth-placed Raven Klaasen and Rajeev Ram are next in line to qualify.

First-time ATP World Tour Masters 1000 finalist Roberto Bautista Agut and two-time Shanghai Rolex Masters champion Andy Murray meet in Sunday’s championship match. This is the third meeting between the two and Murray owns a 2-0 record, winning at 2014 Wimbledon and 2015 Munich, both in straight sets. Both players have not dropped a set en route to the final. They each have been broken four times while each breaking opponents 17 times. The No. 15-seeded Bautista Agut is trying to become the first Spaniard to win the title in the tournament’s eight year history. Nadal was runner-up in 2009 and Ferrer in 2011. Murray, who won titles in 2010-11, is making his fourth Shanghai final appearance (2-1). He is attempting to join Djokovic as the only three-time champions.

Bautista Agut defeated reigning Shanghai champion and World No. 1 Djokovic in the semi-finals and last year’s finalist Tsonga in the quarter-finals. He is trying to become the first player outside the Top 10 to beat the top two ranked players in the same tournament since No. 21 David Nalbandian beat No. 1 Federer in the third round, No. 2 Nadal in final at 2007 ATP World Tour Masters 1000 Paris. The 28-year-old Spaniard came into Shanghai No. 17 in the Emirates ATP Race to London and he has improved to No. 13. If he wins the title, he will jump to No. 10 in the race standings. The last ATP World Tour Masters 1000 champion outside the Top 15 was No. 26 Ivan Ljubicic at Indian Wells in 2010.

Bautista Agut is appearing in his fourth ATP World Tour final of the season (2-1) and 10th in his career (5-4). He is 6-30 in his career vs. Top 10 opponents (3-7 this year) and he’s trying to earn back-to-back Top 10 wins for the first time. His 48 match wins in 2016 is a personal-best.

Murray comes in with a nine-match winning streak (18-0 in sets) after capturing his 40th career title in Beijing last Sunday. He is appearing in his career-best 10th final of the season (5-4). He is trying to win a sixth title this year for the first time since 2009. He is also appearing in his 20th career ATP Masters 1000 final (12-7) and 62nd in his career (40-21). If Murray wins his 41st career title, he will tie former Swedish No. 1 Stefan Edberg for 15th place on the Open Era titles list. He would also earn his 617th career match win and surpass former Aussie No. 1 Lleyton Hewitt for 20th place on the Open Era match wins list. Murray came into Shanghai 1,555 race points behind No. 1 Djokovic and he could cut the gap to 915 points by winning the title.

INFOSYS ATP SCORES & STATS: Tournament statistics entering the championship match (+ leads tournament):

The season-ending European indoor swing is here and the Emirates ATP Race To London has entered the home stretch.

The final ATP World Tour 250 events of the year will be held next week at the VTB Kremlin Cup in Moscow, inaugural European Open in Antwerp and If Stockholm Open. Contenders are jockeying for positions to secure the three remaining berths at the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals, with four players sitting within 1,000 points of Dominic Thiem and the coveted eighth spot.

In position to make his debut at The O2 from 13-20 November, Gael Monfils currently occupies the sixth spot with 3,625 points. The Frenchman will be looking to separate himself from the pack as the top seed in Stockholm. After receiving a first-round bye, he will open against either Gastao Elias or Ivan Dodig, with a potential blockbuster semi-final clash against surging #NextGen star Alexander Zverev in the cards. Former champion Grigor Dimitrov (2013) is seeded second.

In Antwerp, David Goffin leads the field and will be looking to chase down Tomas Berdych for the ninth position. The Belgian, who is 235 points behind the Czech and 560 behind Thiem for No. 8, hopes the home crowd will launch him to London. He opens against either Tommy Robredo or Florian Mayer, with Pablo Cuevas in his half of the draw and fellow seeds David Ferrer, Richard Gasquet and Gilles Simon looming as potential final opponents.

In Moscow, Roberto Bautista Agut is the top seed and will be in striking distance of the elite eight should he capture the Shanghai Rolex Masters title on Sunday. A maiden ATP World Tour Masters 1000 crown would vault the Spaniard to No. 10 in the Emirates ATP Race To London. He opens against Konstantin Kravchuk or a qualifier, with countrymen Pablo Carreno Busta and Albert Ramos-Vinolas and home hope Karen Khachanov standing in his path.

The gap is narrowing. Andy Murray is hot on Novak Djokovic’s tail in pursuit of year-end No. 1 in the Emirates ATP Rankings. For four of the past five years, the Serbian has sat atop the tennis world come November, but following a semi-final defeat to Roberto Bautista Agut at the Shanghai Rolex Masters, his continued reign is not guaranteed.

Despite suffering just his second loss at the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 event since 2010, Djokovic is optimistic for a strong finish to the season, which will culminate with a title defence at the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals.

“It’s not over yet,” said Djokovic. “There are a couple of big tournaments still along the way in Paris and London. I’ll try to get ready for indoor season where I always, in the last couple of years, played pretty well. I’ll try to get better.”

When you’ve been as dominant as Djokovic has over the past few years, expectations and standards are high. Having fallen in the final of the US Open (l. to Wawrinka) and in the Shanghai semis, the World No. 1 for 119 straight weeks admits he’s looking to bring his game back to basics. He says that spending time with family and bolstering his mental state is essential.

“There are definitely things that I need to regain from the emotional and mental point of view. I’m focusing on that more, so it’s a transition somewhere in between. Maybe I’m just exhausted by the amount of matches I have had in the last 15 to 20 months. So maybe all in all that’s the cause of me feeling this way.

“But again, as I said, I had to experience this sooner or later. I knew I could not go on playing on highest level for so many years all the time, but it’s good to experience this so I can hopefully get better in the period to come. I guess we all, as humans, experience those kind of oscillations every day, and sometimes things don’t go the way you want them to go.”

Before heading to Paris for the final ATP World Tour Masters 1000 event of the year, time at home with family is the Serbian’s top priority. His son Stefan turns two on 21 October.

“I’m going to celebrate my son’s second birthday. That’s an event I look forward to. I’m going to do a lot of things off the court, plenty of things off the court.”