Doubles Take: Recapping Miami, and looking ahead

Doubles Take is back to recap the happenings in South Beach, plus take a look at this week’s WTA action in Charleston and Monterrey.

EXPERIENCE OVER YOUTH

On the men’s side at the Miami Open, the kids definitely showed they were all right:

Andrey Rublev and Karen Khachanov—who beat two seeded teams on their way to the final—gave all-time greats Bob and Mike Bryan all they could handle in the championship match.

In the end though, experience triumphed over youth.

The Bryans extended their streak of winning at least one title to a staggering 18 years, dating back to when their Russian opponents were more busy with milk bottles than tennis balls.

SINGLES (AND DOUBLES) SENSATIONS

From the first match on—when they beat Australian Open champions Kristina Mladenovic and Timea Babos—Ashleigh Barty and CoCo Vandeweghe meant business. Now, nearly two weeks later, they’re Miami Open champions.

The Australian-American duo also notched another big win in the semifinals over top seeds Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina before routing the Czech team of Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova in the final.

The winners managed to keep it light off the court, which surely helped with the bonding process.

A LOOK AHEAD

The men will be playing the second round of the Davis Cup this week (stay tuned for more on that). The women kick off their clay-court season at the Volvo Car Open in Charleston, where the top seeds are Gabriela Dabrowski and Yifan Xu. However, they face a tough opener against the unseeded team of Raquel Atawo and Anna-Lena Groenefeld. The second seeds are Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Andrea Hlavackova: Mattek-Sands won the title with Lucie Safarova last year, but has been out with a knee injury since Wimbledon.

In Monterrey, Mexico, on hard courts, Nao Hibino and Darija Jurak sit atop the draw with Maria Irigoyen and Miyu Kato in the No. 2 spot.

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