Lintao Zhang/Getty ImagesAndy Murray playing Rafael Nadal in Tokyo.

Andy Murray became the first player in 2011 to win both the singles and doubles titles at an A.T.P. tournament, taking the singles title on his own and pairing with his older brother Jamie to win the doubles at the Rakuten Japan Open Tennis Championships in Tokyo.

Murray, the current No. 4 in the A.T.P. rankings clinched the singles title first, breaking open an initially close contest with top-seed Rafael Nadal to eventually cruise to a 3-6, 6-2, 6-0 victory. After an arduous first two sets that were far more bruising than their scores would suggest, Murray blitzed defending champion Nadal in the third, losing only four points en route to a surprising bagel. Nadal, who entered 2010 with a career 43-13 record in finals, is only 3-7 in them in 2011.

Shortly after his singles win, Murray took the court again at Ariake Coliseum with older brother Jamie in tow, and defeated the pair of Frantisek Cermak and Filip Polasek 6-1, 6-4.

The last player to sweep the singles and doubles at an A.T.P. tournament was Argentine Juan Ignacio Chela, who pulled off the feat last year at a smaller event in Bucharest.

With the singles game constantly becoming more physically taxing, fewer and fewer top singles players dedicate any effort to doubles. Two decades ago in 1991, the singles-doubles sweep of a tournament was achieved eight times. The players who finished 1991 in the top ten of the A.T.P. rankings combined to win a total of seven doubles titles that year. Of the current top ten, Murray is only the second to win a doubles title in 2011 (Nadal paired with friend Marc Lopez to win in Doha this January).

Jamie, the elder of the two Murray brothers by 15 months, should be especially grateful for his brother’s relative dedication to doubles. The win in Tokyo brought Jamie’s doubles ranking to a career-high of No. 23, a feat that would have almost certainly been impossible without his brother’s assistance. Though Jamie has only played eight of his last 29 tournaments with his brother, he has earned 1,630 of his total 2,610 ranking points in those eight events. The proportion is especially surprising since those eight tournaments do not include any of the four more lucrative Grand Slam events.

Though his career prize money of $652,853 is more than $17 million short of Andy’s $17,875,016, Jamie Murray does have one honor that has eluded his brother–a Grand Slam title. Jamie partnered with Jelena Jankovic (then-ranked No. 3 in singles in the W.T.A.) to win the mixed doubles crown at Wimbledon in 2007. While he might not have quite the same talents as his brother, Jamie at least seems to have a knack for picking partners.