David Pel failed to win the doubles title at Wimbledon on Saturday. The North Hollander and his occasional partner Rinky Hijikata lost in the final to Julian Cash and Lloyd Glasspool: 2-6 and 6-7 (3).
Pel and Hijikata quickly fell behind in the final. The Dutchman and his Australian partner were broken twice in the first set and had to admit defeat after just 27 minutes.
In the second set, Pel and Hijikata got better in the rallies, and it came down to a tiebreak. Cash and Glasspool were again too strong (3-7). Cash and Lloyd are the first all-British duo to win in the men’s since 1936.
Pel could have become the sixth Dutchman to win the doubles at Wimbledon (excluding mixed doubles). He would have followed in the footsteps of Betty Stöve (1972), Jacco Eltingh and Paul Haarhuis (1998), Jean-Julien Rojer (2015), and Wesley Koolhof (2023).
Earlier this week, there was Dutch success in the mixed doubles. Sem Verbeek won with the Czech Katerina Siniaková and became the second Dutch winner in mixed doubles after Stöve. She won in 1978 and 1981 alongside the South African Frew McMillan.