Things move quickly on tour: Less than 48 hours after winning the title, Peschke and Melichar had to play their first-round match in Madrid, which they win in a deciding tiebreaker over Simona Halep and Irina-Camelia Begu.
NEWS & NOTES
This year's Bogota champs Dalila Jakupovic and Irina Khromacheva won their second title of the year at the $125,000 event in Anning, China. It was a particularly noteworthy moment for Khromacheva, who also captured the singles event by fighting off three match points in the final.
A LOOK AHEAD
The tours are reunited once again, this time in Madrid. On the men’s side, Lukasz Kubot and Marcelo Melo will try to build upon their semifinal run in Munich as the top seeds. They’re followed in the draw by the “Masters,” Bob and Mike Bryan, who will be going for their fourth ATP 1000-level final in a row. As is the case with the Masters events, a number of dangerous unseeded teams abound, such as Barcelona winners Feliciano Lopez and Marc Lopez, and Raven Klaasen and Michael Venus, facing each other in the first round. After an opening bye, Munich champs Ivan Dodig and Rajeev Ram will play the winners of the match between Australian Open semifinalists Jan-Lennard Struff and Ben McLachlan and Indian Wells champs John Isner and Jack Sock.
On the women’s side, top seeds Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina will open up play against Daria Gavrilova and Su-Wei Hsieh, who picked up an impressive first-round victory over Kiki Bertens and Johanna Larsson. The second seeds are Czechs Andrea Hlavackova and Barbora Strycova, followed by Australian Open winners Timea Babos and Kristina Mladenovic, and Gabriela Dabrowski and Yifan Xu.
Fifth-seeded Latisha Chan and Bethanie Mattek-Sands make for an intriguing duo. They’re already through to the second round after beating Christina McHale and Shuai Peng in straight sets.
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