World Tour Finals doubles race impacted by injury to defending champion

Jean-Julien Roger and Horia Tecau won the World Tour Finals in 2015 and ended the season as the top-ranked doubles team on the ATP Tour. What a difference a year makes. Roger and Tecau did not win a Grand Slam title in 2016 and they have lifted only one winner’s trophy together (in Madrid). As such, the duo currently stands in ninth place in the race to London.

The Rio Olympics did not help their bid to make another trip the 02 Arena. Tecau and fellow Romanian Florin Mergea partnered in Rio, where they won the silver medal after losing a heartbreaker to Rafael Nadal and Marc Lopez in the gold-medal match. In order to prepare for the Olympics, Tecau temporarily parted ways from Rojer to team up with Mergea in Bucharest, Stuttgart, Washington, D.C., and at the Toronto Masters.

Although Rojer and Tecau are back together now to make a late run at London, the Romanian is currently sidelined by a foot injury. He has already withdrawn from next week’s Masters 1000 event in Shanghai and hopes to return later this month at the If Stockholm Open.

With Tecau out, the duo of Max Mirnyi and Treat Huey and the Henri Kontinen-John Peers partnership are clinging to the last two World Tour Finals berths. Mirnyi and Huey fell in this week’s China Open first round to Guido Pella and Paolo Lorenzi. Contenders Julien Benneteau and Edouard Roger-Vasselin are currently in the Beijing quarters, while Bob and Mike Bryan are one victory away from going up against Nadal and Pablo Carreno Busta in the semifinals.

At the Japan Open, meanwhile, London hopefuls Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah are facing the second-ranked team of Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares in the quarters. Murray and Soares, who won both the Australian Open and the U.S. Open this year, can surpass Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut for No. 1 in the 2016 race if they reach the Tokyo title match.

Top 8

1. Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut: 7,075 points.

2. Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares: 6,800 points.

3. Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan: 5,530 points.

4. Ivan Dodig and Marcelo Melo: 4,130 points.