Doubles Take: Both tours battling it out in Madrid

Doubles Take is here with a look at the latest results from the clay-court swing on the ATP and WTA tours.

READY TO MASTER MADRID

Once again, both tours are competing at the same event: this time, the Mutua Madrid Open. The women got an earlier start on play, and the quarterfinal lineup is close to being completed. However, the top-seeded team of Elise Mertens and Su-Wei Hsieh won’t be there, having lost their opening match. Among the duos left are the veteran Russians Elena Vesnina—in the midst of a comeback—and Vera Zvonareva, as well as Demi Schuurs and Gabriela Dabrowski.

On the men’s side, the draw is set up for a collision course between the top two seeds—Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah, and Mate Pavic and Nikola Mektic, who will be going for their third Masters title of the year. As is the case, though, at a tournament of this magnitude, there are pitfalls at every stop, with plenty of unseeded teams a threat to make a deep run, along with singles players angling to get in some extra court time. For example, world No. 3 Daniil Medvedev is making his way back to the court after a COVID-19 diagnosis and is partnering doubles specialist Marcelo Demoliner. They managed to knock off Miami and Monte Carlo finalists Neal Skupski and Daniel Evans in their first-round match.

FIGHT TO THE FINISH

They haven’t played together the whole season, but good things evidently happen when Tim Puetz and Hugo Nys team up. The veterans started the year perfectly with a run to the title at the Challenger event in Biella, Italy, then reached the semifinals last month at the ATP event in Marbella, Spain. In Estoril, Portugal, the unseeded duo maintained their winning ways all the way to the title.

In a battle of unseeded teams, Nys and Puetz topped Dominic Inglot and Luke Bambridge in a match tiebreak for their first ATP-level triumph together. It’s Puet’z third career title and Nys’ second and the first for either of them in two years.

ON A ROLL

Coming off French Open victories the past two years, Kevin Krawietz and Andreas Mies were expected to maintain their place among the top teams on the ATP Tour this year. However, right from the start, Mies was sidelined by a knee injury, putting a halt on their expected run of good form. Krawietz has soldiered on, and has reached two finals with Horia Tecau,

Teaming up with Wesley Koolhof in Munich, the German went a step past the runner-up stage.

The tournament’s top seeds won their first two matches in straight sets, then were granted a walkover in the semis. In the championship match, the Dutch-German duo defeated Sander Gille and Joran Vliegen in a match tiebreak. It’s the first title of the year for both Krawietz and Koolhof, who have gone their separate ways in Madrid, partnering Tecau and Lukasz Kubot, respectively.