Third time was a charm for Andrey Rublev and Karen Khachanov as they won their maiden title as a doubles pair as they lifted the ATP Masters 1000 Madrid Open trophy on Saturday.

Having previously finished runners-up at the Miami Open in 2018 and the Paris Masters 2019, the childhood friends finally got their hands on some silverware at the highest level as they defeated seventh seeds Rohan Bopanna and Matthew Ebden 6–3, 3–6, [10–3] in the men’s doubles final at Caja Magica in the Spanish capital.

They had previously won silver at the 2014 Youth Olympic Games, but had to bide their time at ATP Tour level – something which had started to frustrate Khachanov as Rublev had won doubles titles with Dmitry Tursunov, Aslan Karatsev and Denys Molchanov.

Rublev was in fine form during the post-match interviews as he dropped a couple of “s***s” to joke about his doubles partner.

“You cannot imagine how much s*** he was giving me because I was winning titles with other doubles partners,” he said.

“With Aslan, Denys, with some other guys and he was giving me a lot of s*** [saying] ‘you win with everyone, but as soon as you play with me you never win’. And then I won the biggest one [with him]. I keep the biggest one for you.”

A laughing Khachanov – who won his maiden doubles title – added: “This day has come.”

What made Khachanov and Rublev’s victory even more impressive was the fact that they were 3-6, 1-4 down against Marcel Granollers and Horacia Zeballos in the opening round, but came away with a 3-6, 6-4 [10-7] win. They then defeated fifth seeds Nikola Mektic and Mate Pavic as well as fourth seeds Marcelo Arevalo and Jean-Julien Rojer en route to reaching the final.

They are also only the second all-Russian pairing to lift an ATP Masters 1000 doubles trophy with Yevgeny Kafelnikov and Andrei Olhovskiy the first to do so in Montreal in 1995.

The friends also met in the singles tournament with Khachanov coming out on top with a two-set victory in the round of 16, although he went on to lose in the quarter-final against Carlos Alcaraz. It was a bit of revenge for Khachanov as Rublev won their third-round encounter at the Monte Carlo Masters and the 25-year-old went on to win the title in the Principality, defeating Holger Rune in the final.

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