Doubles Take: Newport, Bucharest and more

It was a busy week for both tours in their first post-Wimbledon week. Doubles Take looks back and previews this week’s action

CZECH THIS OUT

Aside from winning the Indian Wells $125,000 tournament this year with Evgeniya Rodina, it had been a while since Kristyna Pliskova won a WTA Tour doubles title. In fact, the last one came with her sister Karolina back in 2014 in Hong Kong.

At the Bucharest Open, the Czech ended the drought alongside Viktoria Kuzmova of Russia.

The duo denied the local favorites Jaqueline Cristian and Elena-Gabriela Ruse in straight sets. It’s Kuzmova’s second doubles title of the year and Pliskova’s fourth overall, the other three coming with her sister.

A RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

It was evidently a good week for Russian players on the WTA Tour as Kuzmova wasn’t the only player picking up first-place hardware over the weekend.

At the Ladies Open Lausanne in Switzerland, the unseeded pairing of Anastasia Potapova and Yana Sizikova upset the top-seeded duo of Monique Adamczak and Xinyun Han to take the title.

It’s Sizikova’s first career title and the second for Potapova, who won her first last year with countrywoman Vera Zvonareva in Moscow.

AUT VS. NED (& AUT)

The Croatia Open final had the look of an Austrian Davis Cup practice with the nation’s three top doubles players—Oliver Marach, Jurgen Melzer and Philipp Oswald—taking the court.

Dutchman Robin Haase might have been the odd man out, but that was surely OK as he and Oswald were the winners at the end.

Playing together for the first time, Haase and Oswald fought off two match points in the final as they each won their first title of the year.

A BREAKTHROUGH IN BASTAD

Over the past few seasons, Sander Gille and Joran Vliegen have been clawing their way up the rankings and through tournaments. Earlier in the year, they reached their first ATP Tour semifinal on clay in Cordoba.

Now, they’ve managed to go a step further. Well, two actually.

The pair won its first title in Bastad, Sweden, as they topped Horacio Zeballos—who’s been lights out all season—and Federico Delbonis in the final. The win has taken both of them to career-highs, with Vliegen cracking the top 50 and Gille steadily approaching that position.

A REAL GRASS ACT

At the last grass-court event of the season, Sergiy Stakhovsky and Marcel Granollers had a perfect ending for this portion of the summer.

The tour veterans, playing together for the first time, took the title in one of the best finals of the year over Marcelo Arevalo and Miguel Angel Reyes-Varela, prevailing in a 13-11 match tiebreak. Stakhovsky won his first doubles title in eight years, while Granollers captured the 17th of his career.

THIS WEEK

Oh, hello hard courts: There you are. The summer stretch leading up to the year’s last major, the US Open, gets under way at the ATP stop in Atlanta where last year, John-Patrick Smith and Nicholas Monroe won the title. They return this year, but with different partners: Smith is teaming up with Ben McLachlan while Monroe is partnering Frances Tiafoe. The top seeds are Bob and Mike Bryan, who will be going for their third title at the tournament, followed by Austin Krajicek and Dominic Inglot.

The other tournaments on tap for both tours this week are on the clay. The men have two events: the 500-level tournament in Hamburg, where Croatians Ivan Dodig and Mate Pavic are back to defend their title as the top seeds, and the Swiss Open, where Philipp Oswald and Filip Polasek sit atop the draw.

For the women, there are two clay-court events happening this week, too. The inaugural Baltic Open in Latvia features the nation’s best-ever player, Jelena Ostapenko, leading the charge with Galina Voskoboeva. Monique Adamczak and Xinyun Han, coming off their runner-up finish in Lausanne, are the second seeds. Cornelia Lister and Renata Voracova, the top seeds at the Palermo Ladies Open in Italy, received a bye into the second round. Daria Gavrilova and Shuai Peng, the third seeds, have battled their way into the quarters to join Lister and Voracova. Georgina Garcia Perez and Fanny Stollar are seeded second at the tournament.

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