HEAD Player Mark Knowles Runner-up at Tennis Masters Cup in Shanghai

HEAD player Mark Knowles of the Bahamas and partner Daniel Nestor of Canada placed second in the doubles competition at the Tennis Masters Cup in Shanghai.

In the semifinal round on Saturday, the duo defeated the fourth seeded team of Australian Paul Hanley and Kevin Ullyett from Zimbabwe. They then fell in straight sets to the No. two seed Jonas Bjorkman from Sweden and Max Mirnyi from Belarus, 6-2 and 6-4 in the final on Sunday. Knowles, who battled through the tournament with his HEAD Flexpoint Prestige MP, and Nestor split the second place prize of $105,000.

On the tournament’s Web site, Knowles was quoted as saying, "We have been playing great this fall and our goal coming into the Masters Cup was to have a strong performance. We played well, improving with every match."

Only the top eight doubles teams in the world are invited to the Masters Cup, the culminating event on the men’s professional tennis circuit. The top seven players and teams in the INDESIT ATP Race and Stanford ATP Doubles Race, plus eligible Grand Slam champions, qualify for the eight-man, eight-team round-robin event to be played in Shanghai, China through 2008.

In singles play, ATP World No. 1 Roger Federer of Switzerland, captured his third Tennis Masters Cup title in four years.