ATP Tour

Doumbia/Reboul enjoy the beach, party time, then another ATP 250 title in Bastad!

Sadio Doumbia and Fabien Reboul rode some positive off-court vibes to on-court success Sunday at the Nordea Open, where the French pair marched to its second ATP Tour crown of the season.

The second-seeded Doumbia and Reboul downed top seeds Theo Arribage and Francisco Cabral 6-3, 6-4 at the clay ATP 250 event in Bastad. Afterwards, both players spoke of how the atmosphere of the vibrant Swedish coastal town had fed into their on-court prowess.

“We’re very happy. It was a pretty difficult week because I was a bit sick during the week, but the place is so amazing and we fought in every match,” Reboul said. “We enjoyed it a lot. We went to party. We went to the beach. We have many friends here and we met many nice people, so we felt very great here. It’s always a pleasure to win in a place where you feel very good, so very happy and hopefully we will come back next year.”

Doumbia and Reboul saved all four break points they faced in their first Lexus ATP Head2Head meeting with Arribage and Cabral, according to Infosys ATP Stats. The pair dropped one set all week in Bastad, against Jean-Julien Rojer and Theodore Winegar in the semi-finals.

“I feel like we found a way to fight,” Doumbia reflected. “For example, in the semi-final, that was very tough. Today was very tough as well and we found a way to fight and stay together as a team. Very happy about that. Such a great week, such a great tournament.”

The 35-year-old Doumbia and 30-year-old Reboul have now won seven ATP Tour titles together. The Frenchman are ninth in the PIF ATP Live Doubles Teams Rankings as they chase a debut appearance at the season-ending Nitto ATP Finals.