Rafael Nadal helped ease the disappointment of losing in the singles semi-finals earlier on Saturday (falling to Ivan Ljubicic) by teaming with fellow Spaniard Marc Lopez to take the BNP Paribas Open doubles championship.
A wild card team into this ATP World Tour Masters 1000 event, Lopez-Nadal dropped just one set en route to their second title together, in their first-round upset of No. 3 seeds Lukas Dlouhy and Leander Paes.
In Saturday's final they defeated No. 1 seeds Daniel Nestor and Nenad Zimonjic, 7-6(8), 6-3. Both teams dropped serve once in the first set but Lopez-Nadal didn't offer their higher-ranked opponents a single break point in the second set, securing the title in one hour, 35 minutes.
"For me it's a pleasure to play with Marc," said Nadal. "He's a very close friend of mine, and we do really well. After losing important singles, the victory in doubles makes me happy. Always is nice to win a tournament.
"We never thought about winning the tournament here, so we're very happy for that. We enjoying a lot playing together."
Coincidentally, Lopez-Nadal beat the Canadian-Serbian duo to win their first title as a team, in Doha in 2009. Nestor and Zimonjic were also runners-up in Indian Wells in 2007, although Nestor won this event four times with Mark Knowles.
This is Nadal's sixth ATP World Tour doubles title and second at Masters 1000 level (also Monte Carlo in 2008 with Tommy Robredo). Lopez has won both of his career doubles titles with Nadal; the compatriots were playing as a team for only the fifth time.
"It's an amazing week and my second time here," said Lopez. "It's a pleasure to play with Rafa; he's my friend. I always play Challengers so this is very big for me. It's unbelievable. Every match is important and beating [Nestor-Zimonjic] for the second time is great."
Lopez-Nadal split the first prize of $198,400 (each earn 1000 ATP Doubles Ranking points) while runners-up Nestor-Zimonjic share $96,820 (and each receive 600 points).
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