In team debut, Cirstea and Kalinskaya claim Madrid doubles title

Sorana Cirstea and Anna Kalinskaya teamed up for the very first time at the 2025 Mutua Madrid Open. And now, after a brilliant team-debut fortnight, they are WTA 1000 doubles champions.

In Sunday’s all-unseeded final that went down to the last moment, Cirstea and Kalinskaya squeaked past Veronika Kudermetova and Elise Mertens 6-7(10), 6-2, [12-10]saving one championship point in the match-tiebreak.

The pendulum swung back and forth throughout, and Cirstea and Kalinskaya found themselves down a set and a break at 7-6, 2-0. They came all the way back and closed out the victory after 2 hours and 14 minutes of unpredictable action.

Both Cirstea and Kalinskaya broke lengthy doubles title droughts with the win. This is Kalinskaya’s fourth WTA doubles title and her first since 2022. Cirstea had to wait even longer for her sixth WTA doubles title — her most recent one came in 2019.

This is the first WTA 1000 title for both Cirstea and Kalinskaya in any discipline. Both of them were contesting their first WTA 1000 finals in doubles, although they have each been WTA 1000 runners-up in singles — Cirstea at 2013 Toronto and Kalinskaya at 2024 Dubai.

This fortnight started perfectly for Cirstea and Kalinskaya — in their very first match as a duo, they upset No. 1 seeds Gabriela Dabrowski and Erin Routliffe in a match-tiebreak. With momentum behind them, they went all the way to the final.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the draw, a reunion for Kudermetova and Mertens was going wonderfully, as they moved into the final. Kudermetova and Mertens were playing together for the first time since they won the 2022 WTA Finals title at the end of a successful season.

The first set of Sunday’s final featured six breaks of serve and had to be settled by a gripping tiebreak. Cirstea and Kalinskaya held four set points in the first portion of the breaker, but they were not able to close out the one-set lead.

Kudermetova and Mertens charged back, and Kudermetova’s strong net play converted their third set point after 1 hour and 13 minutes. An early 2-0 lead in the second set seemed to indicate that Kudermetova and Mertens would resume their partnership with another team title.

But the script completely flipped from there. Kalinskaya’s returns and Cirstea’s bold volleys suddenly became the dominant forces, and they swept the next six games to grab the second set and level affairs. Meanwhile, Kudermetova and Mertens had 12 unforced errors in that set, to just four winners.

It came down to the match-tiebreak, which was as closely-contested as the rest of the final. Each team saved one championship point en route to 10-10, where a Mertens forehand flew long, giving Cirstea and Kalinskaya one more chance to prevail. There, Kalinskaya slammed a winning overhead to finish off the dramatic tilt and capture the title.