Zimonjić, and Fyrstenberg and Matkowski, with three meetings in 2008 in Sydney (won by Fyrstenberg/Matkowski), Rome (won by Nestor/Zimonjić), and Madrid (won by Fyrstenberg/Matkowski), and a second round in Monte Carlo between Fyrstenberg and Matkowski, and Björkman and Ullyett (won by Björkman/Ullyett). Finally, two encounters were to be first matchups in Shanghai, as neither Fyrstenberg and Matkowski nor Björkman and Ullyett entered the Tennis Masters Cup having played against the pairing of Dlouhý and Paes during the season. Day-by-day summaries Day 1 The first match of the competition to take place, on November 9, was the second career confrontation, in the doubles' Red Group, of Bob and Mike Bryan, and Pablo Cuevas and Luis Horna, since the South Americans upset the American duo at the French Open. The top seeded pair, which entered the tournament in a race with Gold Group leaders Daniel Nestor and Nenad Zimonjić to clinch the year-end No. 1 spot, overwhelmed Cuevas and Horna, in their fourth career hard court match together (with previously one win and two losses), racing to a 6–1 win in the first set, before their opponents fought back in the second, breaking to eventually lead 5–2, when the Americans rallied back to serve for the match at 6–5. Cuevas and Horna took the Bryans' serve once more to reach a tie-break, in which the Americans eventually prevailed to win the match 6–1, 7–6. The other match taking place on the first day opposed Mahesh Bhupathi and Mark Knowles to Jeff Coetzee and Wesley Moodie, and left the Indian-Bahamian pair victorious for the second time in two career meetings. Bhupathi and Knowles faced little resistance, breaking their adversaries three times to score a 6–2, 6–3 victory. The singles event kicked off later in the day, first opposing ATP No. 3 Novak Djokovic to seventh seed Juan Martín del Potro. No upset was produced, as Djokovic scored his first career victory at the year-end championships, after losing all his matches at the 2007 edition, and increased his head-to-head against del Potro to 2–0, beating the Argentinian in straight sets. Djokovic had broken early in the first set, and was serving for the set at 5–3, when del Potro broke, and reached 5–5, before Djokovic took back the advantage, to win the set 7–5. In the second set, del Potro broke to lead 2–1, but Djokovic immediately levelled the score to 2–2, breaking again