Arévalo and Pavic shine and are the Cincinnati champions | ATP Tour

Cincinnati

Arévalo and Pavic shine and are the Cincinnati champions

The fourth seeds took home their first ATP Masters 1000

August 19, 2024

Winners from start to finish. That’s how Salvadoran Marcelo Arévalo and Croatian Mate Pavic were crowned champions of the Cincinnati Open on Monday, beating Americans Mackenzie McDonald and Alex Michelsen 6-2 and 6-4 in a solid final.

From the start of the match, the Arévalo-Pavic duo was firm and active at the net and quickly took advantage by breaking the opponent’s second serve. With another break, they easily won the first set 6-2.

After the match was stopped for a few minutes to treat McDonald, who was injured on an ankle, the trend continued in the second set, although it was a bit more even, before sealing the victory by 6-4, after one hour and two minutes of play.

“It’s never easy to get to the final, especially against them,” Pavic said. “They won a couple of big matches this week, they beat the number one seed, [que] “For me right now they are probably in the best form on the circuit, so they showed that they can beat anyone in doubles. They are good singles players, so it was not easy.”

“It was a bit of a different match, we didn’t know what to expect, we hadn’t seen them play that much, compared to when we played against other doubles pairs. We played smart, we played well.” [en dobles] From the beginning and throughout the week we played good tennis.

The duo claimed their first ATP Masters 1000 title as a couple, while for the Salvadoran it was the second ATP Masters 1000, after winning last year in Toronto, Canada, when he was still playing with Jean-Julien Rojer. Meanwhile, Arévalo added his 34th, with the highlight of two Grand Slams, Roland Garros 2022 and 2024, and now two ATP Masters 1000s, Toronto 2023 and Cincinnati 2024.

“We’ve been playing all year, so we started off playing well and then we had a bit of ups and downs, but we kept believing, we kept working together as a team, with our coaches and everything,” Arevalo reflected. “Then we started getting better results and now we feel confident together, we have good communication.”

“I’ve always said that in a doubles team it’s very important to have a good vibe on and off the court, and I think that’s something we’ve done quite well in recent months. It requires a lot of work, a lot of dedication and we’re happy to have been able to [ganar] and to have been lucky enough to overcome this match and also the title.”

With Monday’s win, Arevalo became the first player from El Salvador to win the Cincinnati tournament. He and Pavic also consolidated their second spot in the PIF ATP Live Doubles Rankings. They are now just 460 points behind leaders Marcel Granollers and Horacio Zeballos, whom McDonald and Michelsen defeated in the Cincinnati semifinals.