Yuki Bhambri-Alexei Popyrin win title after stunning run

India’s Yuki Bhambri and Australian Alexei Popyrin won the doubles title at the Dubai Tennis Championships 2025 on Saturday after a stunning giant-killing spree.

In what was the maiden ATP 500 doubles final for both tennis players, Bhambri and Popyrin edged out the second-seeded duo of Finland’s Harri Heliovaara and Great Britain’s Henry Patten 3-6, 7-6 (12), 10-8 in the final.

Heliovaara and Patten, the reigning US and Australian Open doubles tennis champions, were decisive with their serves in the opening set and managed a break in the fourth game to take the lead.

Bhambri-Popyrin, however, pushed the British-Finnish pair hard in the second set and even forced them to save a set point in the ninth game. The set eventually went into a tiebreaker, which Bhambri and Popyrin won 14-12 after a marathon exchange.

In the super-tiebreaker that ensued, Bhambri-Popyrin took an 8-5 lead. Harri-Patten managed to save four match points before finally succumbing to a defeat. The contest lasted one hour and 51 minutes.

The stunning come-from-behind victory in the final was the cherry on cake for the Indo-Australian duo who managed some high profile scalps over the course of the tournament.

Bhambri and Popyrin produced a major upset in the Round of 16, where they staged a brilliant comeback to defeat El Salvador’s Marcelo Arevalo and Croatia’s Mate Pavic 4-6, 7-6(1), 10-3.

Arevalo and Pavic are both jointly ranked top in the ATP doubles world tennis rankings.

In the quarter-finals, the Indo-Aussie pair edged past the all-British team of Julian Cash and Lloyd Glasspool 5-7, 7-6(5), 10-5 after displaying tremendous resilience under pressure.

Interestingly, Bhambri, along with Croatia’s Ivan Dodig, were also responsible for knocking out top seeds Arevalo and Pavic from the Qatar Open last month.

The Indo-Croat pair won the quarter-final match 2-6, 6-3, 10-8 before going down to Cash and Glasspool, the eventual champions, in the semis.

The unseeded Bhambri-Popyrin duo, however, managed to continue their giantkilling spree in Dubai in the top four as well and ousted Great Britain’s Jamie Murray and Australia’s John Peers 6-2, 4-6, 10-7 in the semis.

Both Murray and Peers are former Grand Slam champions while the Australian is one half of the current men’s doubles Olympic champions alongside compatriot Matthew Ebden.

This was Indian tennis player Yuki Bhambri’s fourth ATP Tour doubles title but the first ATP 500 one. His previous three all came in the 250 level.

For Popyrin, this was his first ATP Tour doubles final at any level. The Australian player, however, has won three singles titles in his career, including the Canada Open Masters 1000.

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