Colombian duo Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah will have their long-standing partnership toasted during 2020 Roland Garros after being named ITF World Champions in men's doubles following a stunning 2019 season.

The duo are the first Colombians to win an ITF World Champion award since Juan Sebastian Gomez collected the boys’ award in 2010.  

“We are very, very happy to receive this award,” said Farah. “For us it’s been a magical year, we gave everything on court. Thanks so much to the ITF for rewarding us with the 2019 World Champions award and showing us how much tennis is appreciated around the world.”

"We feel very honoured to have been named 2019 World Champions in doubles and this award motivates us to keep playing at this level next year,” added Cabal. “Hopefully we can give more joy to more people around the world.”

Friends for nearly three decades, Cabal and Farah made their presence felt during the past 12 months and conjured a formula which, at times, proved unfathomable for their rivals.

Warnings were sounded in April as the pair secured a 12th Tour-level career title in Barcelona. Cabal and Farah recovered from a break down in both sets and saved five set points in the second before dispatching Great Britain’s Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares of Brazil in the final.

The second of five trophies during 2019 arrived in Rome a month later as Cabal and Farah claimed back-to-back titles in the Italian capital courtesy of a routine victory over South Africa’s Raven Klaasen and Michael Venus of New Zealand in the final.

But as the clay-court season ceased, a seminal moment for the duo arrived in the form of the first trophy of their career on grass – a surface which they have traditionally struggled on.

Eastbourne was the venue and the top seeds navigated their path to the final where they overturned a one-set deficit to defeat Argentina’s Maximo Gonzalez and Horacio Zeballos.

Success on the south coast was merely a sign of things to come, with a maiden Grand Slam victory, which the pair later described as “life changing”, just around the corner.

Cabal and Farah became the first Colombians to seal a Grand Slam men’s doubles title as they triumphed at Wimbledon, defeating Frenchmen Nicolas Mahut and Edouard Roger-Vasselin in a five-set thriller of a final.

Victory at the All England Club propelled the duo to joint No. 1 in the world rankings but the party was far from over. The Cabal-Farah axis was to flex its muscle once more on the biggest stage, securing back-to-back Grand Slam crowns by conquering all at the US Open in September.

Cabal and Farah dropped just a solitary set during their title charge and duly dispatched Spain’s Marcel Granollers and Horacio Zeballos of Argentina in the final.

Their stellar season, which also yielded wins in two of the three Davis Cup ties they contested, resulted in Cabal and Farah becoming the second all-South American team to finish as year-end No. 1s since the inception of the rankings.

Cabal and Farah, aged 33 and 32 respectively, followed in the footsteps of Chile’s Hans Gildemeister and Andres Gomez of Ecuador, who achieved the feat in 1986.