Childhood friends Andrey Rublev, Karen Khachanov win first doubles title in Madrid
“You cannot imagine how much *** he was giving me because I was winning doubles titles with other partners,” Rublev recounted in a hilarious post-match interview.
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A pair of unlikely champions stole the doubles spotlight at the Mutua Madrid Open, as Andrey Rublev and Karen Khachanov toppled No. 7 seeds Matt Ebden and Rohan Bopanna 6-3, 3-6, 10-3 in the final.
The childhood friends had actually faced each other in singles, with Khachanov ending Rublev’s Madrid campaign with a 7-6 (8), 6-4 victory in the fourth round. But they continued without a hitch in doubles, where they won four match tie-breaks en route to clinching their first ATP title together.
“You cannot imagine how much shit he was giving me because I was winning doubles titles with other partners,” Rublev said in a hilarious post-match interview, as Khachanov started to list out names in the background. “‘You win with everyone but with me you never win.’
“And in the end, now we win the biggest one! I kept the biggest one for you.”
Khachanov and Rublev posted wins over a series of veteran partnerships in Madrid, including Marcel Granollers and Horacio Zeballos in the first round, No. 5 seeds Nikola Mektic and Mate Pavic in the second round, Jamie Murray and Michael Venus in the quarterfinals and No. 4 seeds Marcelo Arevalo and Jean-Julien Rojer in the semifinals.
For Khachanov, the victory marked his first doubles title at the ATP level, while for Rublev, it was his biggest doubles title to date. Rublev has previously won three ATP 250 doubles titles, as well as an Olympic gold medal in mixed doubles from the 2020 Tokyo Games.
They are also just the second all-Russian team to win an ATP Masters 1000 trophy, after Yevgeny Kafelnikov and Andrei Olhovskiy’s 1995 victory in Montreal.