Doubles Take: Wimbledon returns 

WATCH: Tennis Channel Live talks with Sloane Stephens on Day 1 of Wimbledon.

Between both the men’s and women’s draws at Wimbledon this year, a number of teams will be trying to make history, the kind that goes beyond the act of winning a Grand Slam title and stands among the all-time achievements in the sport.

Only one women’s team in the 2000s has won the French Open and Wimbledon in the same year, and that’s Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova, who pulled off the feat in 2018, several years after accomplishing that clay-to-grass sweep as juniors. After capturing their second French Open title a few weeks ago, the Czechs are the top seeds at Wimbledon, and are considered among the heavy favorites to claim the title. Their draw is a tricky one, though, with unseeded Grand Slam winners CoCo Vandeweghe and Sam Stosur a possible early-round opponent.

Should Siniakova and Krejcikova make it through to the quarters, they could possibly face off against 12th seeds Coco Gauff and Caty McNally–bidding to become one of the youngest major championship-winning teams ever—or the unseeded pair of Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Sania Mirza, with the American looking to complete the career Grand Slam.

Though they still have a couple of majors to capture before completing their own major title haul, Timea Babos and Kristina Mladenovic will look to add one of them at Wimbledon this year. After dominating runs at the Australian and French opens the past several seasons, the Hungarian-French duo didn’t play those two events together this year, but are reuniting at the site of their first Grand Slam final back in 2015.

They’re seeded second, but a return trip to the final could be tough, given the quality of opponents on the bottom half of the draw, such as Shuko Aoyama and Ena Shibahara, the fifth seeds coming off their fourth title of the year and first on grass, and Su-Wei Hsieh and Elise Mertens, the third seeds still seeking a first tournament triumph together.

On the men’s side, all eyes will be on Nikola Mektic and Mate Pavic, who just won their seventh title of 2021 and first on grass over the weekend. After being forced out of the French Open due to COVID-19 protocols, the Czechs will look to mark their campaign this year as one of the best seasons ever with a Grand Slam title. They’ll be facing obstacles at every turn, from their first-round opponents Jonathan Erlich and Andrei Vasilevski, who’ve reached three finals together in just over a year; to their projected third-round opponents Marcus Daniell and Philipp Oswald, the 15th seeds; to a possible quarterfinal against Lukasz Kubot and Marcelo Melo, the eighth seeds who won Wimbledon in 2017.

The top half of the draw also includes Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah, the third seeds and defending champions, as well as last year’s Australian Open champions Joe Salisbury and Rajeev Ram.

Of course, the bottom half of the draw isn’t without its own set of perils for the contenders as two-time major champions Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares are down there, along with this year’s Australian Open winners Ivan Dodig and Filip Polasek. However, the road to the final has to go through the second seeds, Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut. After winning the French Open for the second time together a few weeks ago, they made a perfect transition to the grass by winning the title at Queen’s Club, their third overall triumph there and first since 2016. That year, they followed up the Queen’s victory with their first Wimbledon win.

Will history repeat itself? The odds appear to be in the Frenchmen’s favor as they continue to work on completing a second career Grand Slam and further establish themselves among the legends of the game.