Doubles Take: Kevin Krawietz & Andreas Mies keep rolling with home triumph; Madrid heats up

Winning streaks roll on and a major event pushes forward. Doubles Take is here with a weekly look at the results on both tours.

Hometown Heroes, Part I

If their run in Barcelona set it up, then the latest title in Munich confirms it:

Kevin Krawietz and Andreas Mies are back, and given their past successes, are among the leading contenders for the top prize at Roland Garros in a few weeks.

The German duo—which missed most of last year playing together due to an injury to Mies—just won their second title in as many weeks. The two-time French Open champions eked out a first-round win in Munich, then took their next two matches in straight sets to reach the final against another team that’s been on a tear: Rafael Matos and David Vega Hernandez. After dropping the first set, Krawietz and Mies rallied to claim the title in a match tiebreak for their sixth team trophy. Krawietz also extended his personal winning streak at the tournament, having picked up his first title on home soil in 2021 with Wesley Koolhof.

Hometown Heroes, Part II

From Oerias to Cascais, and over the 30-plus-year history of the spring ATP Tour event in Portugal, no players from from the host nation had won the men’s doubles.

That all just changed in a major way.

Nuno Borges and Francisco Cabral put forth an inspired effort all week at the Estoril Open, beating multiple Grand Slam champions en route to the first final for either one of them. In the championship match, the duo topped veterans Maximo Gonzalez and Andre Goransson in straight sets to become only the second and third Portuguese men (after Joao Sousa’s singles run in 2018) to win their home event.

While this was the main tour debut for Borges and Cabral, the duo has known plenty of success in front of their compatriots: They won four Challenger titles in Portugal last year and entered the Estoril Open with two more victories at that level at home in 2022.

This Week

The Madrid Open, one of the crown jewels of the clay-court season for both tours, is well under way. On the women’s side, the quarterfinal field is almost set, with top seeds Storm Sanders and Shuai Zhang having advanced that far. Gabriela Dabrowski and Giuliana Olmos, the second seeds, have made it to the last eight, too, and will next face Ulrikke Eikeri and Tereza Mihalikova. Fifth seeds Coco Gauff and Jessica Pegula, and the always-dangerous Jelena Ostapenko and Lyudmyla Kichenok are waiting for quarterfinal opponents. Third seeds Desirae Krawczyk and Demi Schuurs—fresh off their first title together in Stuttgart—could potentially see Gauff and Pegula next in a blockbuster quarter.

The men’s draw is at a much earlier stage, but several teams have won through to the second round. Wesley Koolhof and Neal Skupski, the seventh seeds and one of the year’s standout teams, took their opener in straights to set up a meeting against wild cards Carlos Alcaraz and Marc Lopez. Miami champs Hubert Hurkacz and John Isner knocked off Belgrade winners Ariel Behar and Gonzalo Escobar, and will next face Karen Khachanov and Andrey Rublev, in what should be an intriguing match between Top-30 singles players. The top four seeds—led by Rajeev Ram/Joe Salisbury and Marcel Granollers/Horacio Zeballos—all had first-round byes. Speaking of the first round, though, Kevin Krawietz and Andreas Mies take on Marcelo Arevalo and Jean-Julien Rojer in one of the toughest openers you’re likely to see all year in a battle of unseeded teams.