Doubles Take: Washington, Kitzbuhel & more

Doubles Take is here with your look back at the week that was, plus a peek at the action ahead.

TEENAGE DREAM

If there was ever any doubt that Cori Gauff and Caty McNally aren’t two of the best and brightest young Americans to come down the pipeline, they erased that at the Citi Open in Washington, D.C.

The 2018 US Open girls’ doubles champions demonstrated they have what it takes to win on the WTA Tour.

Gauff, 15, and McNally, 17, won the doubles title by defeating Maria Sanchez and Fanny Stollar in the final. McNally—who also made the semifinals in singles—and Gauff didn’t drop a set all week. In fact, they only lost 15 games total over four matches, adding to the fact that they’re already the real deal.

RISING TO THE TOP

On the men’s side in Washington, marquee pairings like Stefanos Tsitsipas and Nick Kyrgios and the Murray brothers grabbed all the headlines. In the end, though, it came down to a couple of the best teams in the business in the final.

Raven Klaasen and Michael Venus, the No. 3-seeded duo, topped two-time Grand Slam champs and former Washington winners Jean-Julien Rojer and Horia Tecau for the title.

It’s the second ATP 500-level title of the year for Klaasen and Venus, who won in Halle on grass before Wimbledon.

THE BEST COAST

Last year, Kveta Peschke broke a seven-year North American title drought when she and Latisha Chan won the title in San Jose. Returning to the tournament with Nicole Melichar this time, the 2018 Wimbledon finalists lived up to their billing as the top seeds.

They defeated Shuko Aoyama and Ena Shibahara for their second title of the year, having triumphed in Brisbane back in January.

EASY AS 1, 2, 3?

At the Los Cabos Open, after fighting through a match tiebreak in their opener, Romain Arneodo and Hugo Nys won in similar circumstances in the quarters against the No. 2 seeds, Guido Pella and Diego Schwartzman.

The French players representing Monaco pulled off another escape act in the semifinals against the No. 3 seeds, Santiago Gonzalez and Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi. Arneodo and Nys then saved their best for last as they knocked off the top-seeded duo, Dominic Inglot and Austin Krajicek, in the final—in yet another match tiebreak.

Krajicek and Inglot were going for their second championship in a row, having won in Atlanta last week, but couldn’t stop the Houdini act of Arneodo and Nys, who each claimed the first title of their careers.

THREE WEEKS TO REMEMBER

After Wimbledon, the ATP calendar has some clay-court events mixed in with the start of the hard-court season. This year, there have been several players and teams that have made their mark on the dirt during the brief swing, one of them being Philipp Oswald.

The Austrian just won his second title in three weeks at home in Kitzbuhel with Filip Polacek, defeating Sander Gille and Joran Vliegen, who were going for their third title in a row. It was a rematch of the championship match just last week in Gstaad, won by the Belgians.

Oswald, who captured his 10th career doubles title, is winning off the court, too.

Congrats to the dad-to-be!

THIS WEEK

Both tours are in Canada for one of the biggest hard-court events of the season, the Rogers Cup. The women are in Toronto, while the men square off in Montreal this year. On the WTA side, the top four teams have first-round byes with Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova, who headline the draw, still in search of their first title of the year. Canada’s top doubles player, Gabriela Dabrowski, and her regular partner Yifan Xu are seeded No. 2, followed by Anna-Lena Groenefeld and Demi Schuurs, who won the title last year with Ashleigh Barty. This year, Barty is teaming up with Victoria Azarenka, who will be going for their second title of 2019.

Over in Montreal, Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah are the top seeds, followed by Lukasz Kubot and Marcelo Melo. Right off the bat, Kubot and Melo will be tested against Feliciano Lopez and Andy Murray, who won the title in Queen’s Club on grass this summer. And in what has become the norm at the ATP Masters 1000 level, a lot of singles standouts are teaming up: Kyle Edmund/Taylor Fritz, Benoit Paire/Stan Wawrinka and Grigor Dimitrov/Kei Nishikori are just a few of the pairings.

Follow Van on Twitter: @Van_Sias