Italians Simone Bolelli and Andreas Seppi captured the doubles title on Saturday at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships.

Bolelli and Seppi defeated Spaniards Feliciano Lopez and Marc Lopez 6-2, 3-6, 14-12 for their first ATP World Tour team title.

Bolelli, who is 5-5 in finals, and Seppi, now 1-6 in doubles title matches, earned 500 Emirates ATP Doubles Rankings points and split $150,800 in prize money.

“I’m very happy because a win is always is good, and Dubai is very good tournament, a big tournament,” said Bolelli. “Thanks to Andreas for playing with me this week. I really enjoyed it. I think we played day by day better.

“Today, was very tight. The Match tie-break was unbelievable. We started 1/5 down. Then we saved match point, we had a match point. We tried to play aggressive… Then, I think we returned very good in the [Match] tie-break on the last points. It was a good win.”

Seppi said, “It was a very good week for me. It’s good to win the title in doubles. It’s my first one. I lost six finals, so to finally win a doubles title is always something special, and especially with a good friend.”

Bolelli and Seppi broke in the fifth and seventh games of the 27-minute opener. Lopez and Lopez broke Bolelli to 15 for a 5-3 lead en route to clinching the second set in 31 minutes.

Bolelli and Seppi fought back from a 1/5 deficit in the Match tie-break, saved two match points at 8/9 and 9/10, before converting their third match point opportunity for victory in 79 minutes.

Lopez and Lopez did not drop a set en route to the final, including a quarter-final victory over top seeds Jean-Julien Rojer and Horia Tecau. They lifted the Doha title (d. Murray-Soares) last month.

F. Lopez, who reached the Dubai singles semi-finals (l. to Baghdatis), is now 2-7 lifetime in doubles finals, while M. Lopez dropped to 11-15 in titles matches. They leave the United Arab Emirates with 300 Emirates ATP Doubles Rankings points and $71,270.

Fifth seed Bernard Tomic overcame a slow start to move into the Abierto Mexicano Telcel final with a 1-6, 6-4, 6-3 win over Alexandr Dolgopolov on Friday. Tomic had not beaten the flashy Ukrainian since the 2012 Australian Open, but reversed the trend to qualify for his first ATP World Tour 500 final.

“Many top players in the world don’t like to play Alex, he is very, very tough,” Tomic said. “Rafa [Nadal] and Novak [Djokovic] say that he is a very difficult player, and you just have to stay with him in the match. His level of play was too good in the first set. So I knew I had to stay with him and take advantage of my opportunities.

“I’ve played well in [ATP World Tour] 250 events and in Grand Slams, but never in 500s,” Tomic noted. “I’m very happy to be in a final now.”

Tomic dropped serve three times in the first set, but fought back to record his fourth win in 10 FedEx ATP Head2Head meetings with Dolgopolov. He is into his fifth ATP World Tour final (3-1) and first since winning in Bogota last year (d. Mannarino). The Aussie will be playing for his fourth ATP World Tour title against either Dominic Thiem or Sam Querrey.

“I hope that Querrey wins,” Tomic said. “Otherwise, I’ll have to play someone I’ve never played in my career. Against Querrey, I’ll have to serve big. Thiem is an amazing player on defence and gets a lot of balls back.”

Dolgopolov had been nearly unplayable on serve coming into the semi-finals, having won 29 of 31 service games in three rounds. He saved both break points faced in the opening set, but dropped serve four times in the next two sets to succumb in one hour and 46 minutes.

Pablo Cuevas dashed hopes for a homegrown winner at the Brasil Open by defeating Thiago Monteiro 4-6, 6-3, 6-3 in the quarter-finals on Friday. Cuevas beat the Brazilian for the second time in as many weeks after downing the 21-year-old wild card a few days ago at the Rio Open. With the win, Cuevas improved to 9-1 on clay and 10-0 against left-handers in 2016. The defending champion made history by defeating only lefties en route to the Rio de Janeiro title last week.

“I started the match very passively,” noted Cuevas, who saved six break points in the two-hour encounter. “I wanted to be calm, but I was a little bit off. But as the match went on, I found more intensity in my game, which helped me win today.”

Monteiro, who beat three-time champion Nicolas Almagro in the first round, was appearing in his first ATP World Tour quarter-final.

In the semi-finals, Cuevas will face Dusan Lajovic, who finished strongly with a 6-3, 4-6, 6-0 win over qualifier Gastao Elias. Lajovic won 24 of 32 points in the deciding set to notch his first ATP World Tour quarter-final win (0-8 coming into Friday).

“I’ve played so many quarter-finals, and at one point thought it would never happen,” Lajovic said. “I got a bit tight in the second set and then I got angry with myself. But the whole third set I played really well.”

“I don’t remember facing [Lajovic] before, but I saw he has a nice backhand,” noted Cuevas. “Any player who is playing in a semi-final is there because he is playing well. My goal is to win and to play for the title on Sunday.”

Unseeded Argentines Guillermo Duran and Andres Molteni made a quick start and held off top-seeded Brazilians Marcelo Melo and Bruno Soares 6-1, 2-6, 10-8 in the quarter-finals of the Brasil Open in Sao Paulo on Friday. Each team broke serve twice in the 71-minute match, but the eventual winners only dropped one point on serve in the Match Tie-break to move into the semi-finals.

The other seeded team in the quarter-finals was also upset. Pablo Carreno Busta and David Marrero downed No. 3 Maximo Gonzalez and Andre Sa 6-3, 6-4 in 63 minutes. The Spaniards saved four of five break points faced.

Dubai Doubles Final Set

It will be Spain versus Italy in the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships doubles final on Saturday, as Feliciano Lopez and Marc Lopez will face Simone Bolelli and Andreas Seppi for the title. Lopez/Lopez edged youngsters Hyeon Chung and Jiri Vesely 6-4, 7-6(6), while the Italians topped Lukasz Kubot and Marcin Matkowski 6-4, 6-4.