The Dutchman David Pel reached the final of the men’s doubles at Wimbledon for the first time in his career on Thursday. The doubles specialist stunned with his Australian partner Rinky Hijikata in the semi-finals.
The 34-year-old Pel and the ten-year-younger Hijikata were too strong for the top-seeded couple Marcelo Arévalo from El Salvador and the Croatian Mate Pavic in a thrilling three-setter: 6-7 (2), 7-6 (5) and 7-6 (9). The decision followed in a super tiebreak.
For Pel, number seventy in the ranking for doubles players, it was also the first time that he reached the semi-finals of a Grand Slam tournament. In London, he forms a successful occasional duo with the Australian, who won the doubles title of the Australian Open in 2023 with Jason Kubler.
In the final, Pel and Hijikata will face the winners of the other semi-final. That is between Marcel Granollers from Spain and Horacio Zeballos from Argentina and the British Julian Cash and Lloyd Glasspool. The final will be on Saturday.
Pel could become the sixth Dutchman to win the doubles at Wimbledon’s hallowed turf, after Betty Stöve (1972), Jacco Eltingh and Paul Haarhuis (1998), Jean-Julien Rojer (2015) and Wesley Koolhof (2023).
There is currently another Dutch doubles specialist who is doing well at Wimbledon. Sem Verbeek and his Czech partner Katerina Siniaková have reached the final of the mixed doubles. That final will be played on Thursday evening.