Just three ATP Tour tournaments into their 2025 season and Marcel Granollers and Horacio Zeballos are back in the winners’ circle.
The Spanish-Argentine duo downed Jakob Schnaitter and Mark Wallner 7-6(3), 6-4 on Sunday to claim the title at the Tiriac Open presented by UniCredit Bank in Bucharest. Granollers and Zeballos, who returned to action together last month in Indian Wells after Granollers was sidelined for two months with injury, did not drop a set all week in Romania en route to their 11th tour-level crown as a team.
“It’s really important for us. We played a great week,” said Granollers. “We had a tough start to the season with my injury, but we started again together in Indian Wells and have worked very hard for this title.”
In a final delayed by snow falling in Bucharest, the top seeds converted four of nine break points they earned to prevail in their maiden Lexus ATP Head2Head clash with Schnaitter and Wallner. It was Granollers and Zeballos’ first ATP Tour crown since they triumphed at the ATP Masters 1000 event in Montreal last August.
“At the end it was tough conditions for everybody. You need to be calm and do your thing, and keep everything ‘up’,” said Zeballos. “We are very happy with this ending. We played a really good week against tough teams, so it was perfect for our confidence.”
Nouza/Rikl Cap Dominant Week In Marrakech
Petr Nouza and Patrik Rikl could hardly have been more emphatic in winning their first ATP Tour title.
The Czech duo on Saturday completed a perfect week at the Grand Prix Hassan II, where they downed top seeds Hugo Nys and Edouard Roger-Vasselin 6-3, 6-4. Nouza and Rikl did not drop a set across their four matches in Marrakech.
Petr Nouza and Patrik Rikl win the Grand Prix Hassan II in Marrakech.
In the championship match, the unseeded Nouza and Rikl saved all three break points they faced, according to Infosys ATP Stats. They are the first all-Czech team to win an ATP Tour title since Roman Jebavy/Jiri Vesely triumphed in 2017 in Istanbul.
As a result of their title run in Morocco, Nouza and Rikl have jumped 16 spots to 17th in the PIF ATP Live Doubles Rankings. The 26-year-olds are now 10-9 as a team at Tour-level, a tally which includes a championship-match run in Stockholm last October.
Romboli/Smith win Houston title without dropping a set
Playing just their second ATP Tour tournament together after a semi-final run in Indian Wells, Fernando Romboli and John-Patrick Smith completed their run to the Fayez Sarofim & Co. U.S. Men's Clay Court Championship title Sunday in Houston.
The Brazilian-Australian pair beat Federico Agustin Gomez and Santiago Gonzalez 6-1, 6-4 to complete a trophy run in which they won all eight sets they played, including three via tie-breaks. Now 7-1 as a team, the champions saved all six break points they faced in the final and won 41 of 42 service games on the week.
While Romboli is the first Brazilian champion in tournament history, Smith's triumph extends the streak of at least one Aussie doubles champion in Houston to four years after Matthew Ebden and Max Purcell won in 2022 and Purcell and Jordan Thompson repeated in 2023 and 2024.
