Doubles Take: Beijing, Japan and more

Some familiar favorites—and one of the game’s brightest young stars—stood out in Asia. Doubles Take looks at all the latest action.

YOUTH + EXPERIENCE = VICTORY

This year has been a huge coming-out party for American Sofia Kenin. The 20-year-old has won three singles titles to crack the top 20, with her latest coming a few weeks ago in Guangzhou, China.

She hasn’t been bad on the doubles court, either, as she kicked off the year with the title in Auckland, New Zealand, partnering Eugenie Bouchard. At the just-concluded China Open, Kenin teamed up with Bethanie Mattek-Sands—one of the best doubles players of the decade—and the all-American duo ended up surprising the field.

Awarded a wild card into the last Premier mandatory event of the year, the team beat two seeded pairs on their way to the final before stopping Jelena Ostapenko and Dayana Yastremska in the championship match. Kenin now has five titles between singles and doubles on the year, while Mattek-Sands captured the 27th women’s doubles title of her career—and her first in that discipline since the 2017 French Open, having suffered a devastating injury at Wimbledon a month later.

THE DREAM CONTINUES

At this point, it’s safe to say Filip Polasek is all the way back.

After being forced off the ATP tour due to injury for a couple of years, the Slovakian has been on a tear the second half of 2019, primarily playing with Ivan Dodig of Croatia. The duo just added to its impressive resume in Beijing.

At the China Open, the team won their second title of the year by ousting the top seeds and defending champions Lukasz Kubot and Marcelo Melo in the final. The win lifts Dodig and Polasek into ninth place in the race for the ATP Finals in London.

TRIUMPHANT IN TOKYO

Over the past several years, Nicolas Mahut and Pierre-Hugues Herbert have been one of the best teams on the men’s tour, as evidenced by their career Grand Slam.

However, Mahut and Edouard Roger-Vasselin are a formidable French duo, as well. This year’s Wimbledon finalists just showed how impressive they are with a title-winning run in Tokyo.

The pair beat Nikola Mektic and Franko Skugor in the final for their first victory of the year. Mahut and Roger-Vasselin also reached the final in Metz, France, a few weeks ago and if they continue this run of good form, they could work themselves into position for a spot in London at the year-end championships.

THIS WEEK

The eighth ATP Masters 1000 event of the year is currently taking place in Shanghai, China. The top seeds are Wimbledon and US Open champs Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah, who’ve already gotten through a tough opener—on paper—against Oliver Marach and Jurgen Melzer. They face American singles standouts John Isner and Sam Querrey next. Also making his way into the doubles draw is Novak Djokovic. The world No. 1 in singles is playing with countryman Filip Krajinovic and the Serbs have pulled off an impressive upset already, defeating French Open champs Kevin Krawietz and Andreas Mies in the opening round.

The women have two events this week. At the Tianjin Open in China, top seeds Nicole Melichar and Yifan Xu—who usually star with Kveta Peschke and Gabriela Dabrowski, respectively—are already out, losing to Christina McHale and Yanina Wickmayer. At the other tournament this week in Linz, Austria, 2018 French Open and Wimbledon winners Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova headline the draw, followed by Alicja Rosolska and Renata Voracova.

Follow Van on Twitter: @Van_Sias