Doubles Take: Stuttgart, Barcelona and more

It's Doubles Take time, your weekly look at the teams in action on the ATP and WTA tours.

SHIFT INTO HIGHER GEAR

After reaching a Wimbledon semifinal, making the season-ending championship field and winning multiple titles over the past few years, Americans Abigail Spears and Raquel Atawo split up before the 2017 campaign. The two had a reunion of sorts in Stuttgart at the Porsche Grand Prix.

Atawo and her partner Jelena Ostapenko faced Spears and Katarina Srebotnik, the top seeds, in the final. It was Atawo and Ostapenko who came through in a minor upset for their first title of the year, winning in straight sets, 6-4, 6-4.

Unlike the singles winner of the tournament, Laura Siegemund, Atawo and Ostapenko did not receive a car for their title-winning efforts. Rather, they each received a luxury Porsche bicycle.

A car would be pretty hard to split down the middle.

REIGN IN SPAIN

In 2015 and ‘16, Romanian Florin Mergea found success with Rohan Bopanna of India as the pair became well-known as a consistent title-winning threat.

Mergea has since teamed up Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi of Pakistan to win the ATP 500-level tournament in Barcelona, defeating Phillip Petzschner and Alexander Peya, 6-4, 6-3, in the final. Along the way, they defeated the No. 1 team in the world, Henri Kontinen and John Peers as well as  Horia Tecau and Jean-Julien Rojer. It’s the first title as a team for Mergea and Qureshi.

THE ICING ON THE CAKE

There’s coming back from injury and there’s Brian Baker coming back from injury. The American’s been healthy for a while now (knock on wood) and he’s putting up some solid results in doubles. He won four doubles ATP Challengers in a row toward the end of 2016, and in 2017, won his first title on the main tour in Memphis with Nikola Mektic. The pair teamed up again in Budapest and came away with the title, defeating Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah in the final.

All around, it was a great day for Baker, who celebrated his birthday, too, on Sunday.

A title always makes for a perfect gift.

AMAZING IN ISTANBUL

Sometimes, it’s good to be unseeded; less pressure and more opportunity can make for a successful mix in some circumstances. That was the case for Dalila Jakupovic and Nadiia Kichenok. The pair knocked off the top seeds in the first round at the Istanbul Cup, then were the beneficiaries of a walkover in the next round.

The Slovak-Ukrainian pair then won their semifinal match in straight sets to find themselves in the final against the No. 4 seeds, Nicole Melichar and Elise Mertens (who also reached the singles final). Jakupovic and Kichenok came through a tight first set and rolled in the second to take their first title as a team.

NEWS & NOTES

In case you missed it, there was a great doubles match on Saturday featuring Roger Federer, John Isner and a couple of ringers. Federer and Isner teamed up with Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready, respectively, as part of the Match For Africa 4 exhibition to benefit the Roger Federer Foundation. Gates and McCready held up their own in front of the Seattle crowd:

In the end, “Team Federates” took the set, 6-4. More importantly, $2 million was raised for charity.

A LOOK AHEAD

For the men, there’s the Estoril Open, where Sam Groth and Robert Lindstedt are the top seeds. At the BMW Open in Munich, the field is led by Oliver Marach and Mate Pavic in the No. 1 spot, and Treat Huey and Max Mirnyi as the two seeds. Nicholas Monroe and Artem Sitak, who started off the year well, are the top seeds at the Istanbul Open.

At the WTA event in Prague, top seeds Lucie Hradecka and Katerina Siniakova are already through to the second round. Atawo’s in the field, but is teaming up with Renata Voracova this week. In Rabat, Morocco, Timea Babos and Andrea Hlavackova are the top seeds.