Doubles Take: Away from Tokyo, eight players lift maiden tour trophies 

While the Olympic Games began last weekend, several players were busy battling it out for ATP and WTA hardware. Doubles Take looks at the latest results from the tour stops.

A FIRST TIME FOR NEARLY EVERYONE

Compared with the rest of the winners this past weekend on both the men’s and women’s tours, John Isner’s doubles resumé looks like that of John McEnroe’s or Martina Navratilova’s.

There was a total of five ATP and WTA events played, and among the 10 players that were on championship-winning teams, eight took home their first career doubles title. The only other player besides Isner, a six-time winner best known for his singles success, to have ever tasted victory was Lidziya Marozava of Belarus.

Isner teamed up with Hans Hach Verdugo of Mexico to claim the title at the Los Cabos Open, a first for the local hero. Hach Verdugo wasn’t the only player to delight the home crowd: In Gstaad, Switzerland, Dominic Stricker and Marc-Andrea Huesler—part of the nation’s next wave of talent—came through with the win at the clay-court event. And after prolific results on the Challenger and Futures tours with different partners over the years, veterans David Vega Hernandez and Fernando Romboli each won their first career ATP title in Umag, Croatia.

At the WTA stop in Gdynia, Poland, Marozava claimed her second career doubles title—and first in nearly four years—as she teamed up with Anna Danillina to come out on top at the new event. The other newcomers to the WTA winners’ circle were Erin Routliffe and Kimberley Zimmermann, who captured the championship in Palermo, Italy.

THIS WEEK

The summer hard-court swing continues for the men with the tour stop in Atlanta, making its way back on the calendar after last year’s cancellation. Luke Bambridge and Ken Skupski sit atop the draw, but the next two seeds are already out: Jonathan Erlich and Santiago Gonzalez fell to Reilly Opelka and Jannik Sinner, while Divij Sharan and Aisam Ul-Haq Qureshi were knocked out by the marquee pairing of Nick Kyrgios and Jack Sock.

The ATP isn’t done with the clay yet. The 250-level tournament in Kitzbuhel, Austria, has a very strong field, led by Tomislav Brkic and Nikola Cacic, who’ve reached three finals on the surface in 2021. The second seeds are Hugo Nys and Andrea Vavassori, each of whom have won titles this year with different partners, followed by the veterans Roman Jebavy and Matwe Middelkoop. Ariel Behar and Gonzalo Escobar, one of the year’s biggest surprises with five finals so far, are the fourth seeds. All those pairs are already through to the quarterfinals.