PARIS — Veterans Marcel Granollers and Horacio Zeballos won the French Open doubles final Saturday for their first major title together at the combined age of 79.
Granollers, a 39-year-old from Spain, and his 40-year-old Argentine partner played in their fourth Grand Slam final as a pairing, but first at the clay-court major. They defeated British pair Joe Salisbury and Neal Skupski 6-0, 6-7 (5), 7-5.
Granollers and Zeballos, who were seeded fifth in Paris, were runners-up at the U.S. Open in 2019 and Wimbledon in 2021 and 2023.
Salisbury and Skupski were the first all-British team to reach a Grand Slam men’s doubles final in the Open era (1968) and the first British men’s doubles finalists at Roland Garros since 1936.
Granollers and Zeballos were dominant early, blanking their eighth-seeded opponents in the opening set before being dragged into a dogfight in the next.
Salisbury and Skupski, who won the only previous tour-level encounter between the two teams in the Rome quarterfinals last month, won the second set tiebreak and were close to building a 4-3 lead in the decider before a moment of magic.
Zeballos hit the shot of the match to level at deuce in the next game, chasing down a dipping ball and squeezing it around the post at ground level to draw loud cheers from a small crowd on Court Philippe Chatrier.
Salisbury and Skupski refused to fade away, fighting on before running out of gas in the 12th game.
Granollers and Zeballos broke to love to secure victory and fell to the ground in celebration.
Information from the Associated Press and Reuters was used in this report.
