Beijing, China, 8 October 2017 | Leigh Rogers

John Peers and Henri Kontinen are the China Open 2017 men’s doubles champions.

The 29-year-old Australian and his Finnish partner defeated American duo John Isner and Jack Sock in a hard-fought final, winning 6-3 3-6 10-7.

“When you play Jack and John, they’re both such big servers and can take the match away from you if you don’t be careful, but I thought we served really well today,” Peers said.

“We stayed composed and did not let them hit us off the court.”

The top seeds made a strong start, breaking in the sixth game and racing through the first set in 28 minutes.

It was tight early in the second set, before the Americans broke Peers’ serve in the sixth game and held firm to even the final at one set-all.

Peers, the world No.2-ranked doubles player and now winner of 14 ATP World Tour doubles titles, said he still felt confident heading into the deciding super tiebreak.

“It was anyone’s game, all you have to do is win a set and a tiebreak in this format. The ebbs and flows in momentum don’t take too much, so you can never get too worried about the score line,” he said.

It is Peers and Kontinen’s third title this season, and seventh together since teaming up at the beginning of last year.

Striking a pose with their new #ChinaOpen trophy, @henrikontinen and @johnwpeers. pic.twitter.com/V7wiGLgD4C

— China Open (@ChinaOpen) October 8, 2017

Currently the No.2 performed team this season behind Brazilian Marcelo Melo and Poland’s Lukaz Kubot, this victory closes the gap and boosts their chances of finishing as the year’s top team. But Peers admitted they were not too worried about chasing Melo and Kubot in the team rankings.

“For us, it’s more about consistently performing, which we’ve done a lot better than last year,” he said. “If we can consistently perform well, the numbers will take care of themselves. That’s the challenge for us.”

They now turn their attention to the Shanghai Masters next week, where they are the top seeds.