Two impromptu teams win the doubles titles at Indian Wells when Alexandr Dolgopolv/Xavier Malisse and Sania Mirza/Elena Vesnina score their first triumphs together.
Dolgopolov and Malisse defeated Olympic gold medalists Roger Federer and Stanislas Wawrinka 6-4, 6-7, 10-7 (super tiebreak). It's the Ukranian's first ATP title of any sort. "He just ask me, 'Do you want to play?' like 15 minutes to the deadline of the doubles, because I wasn't planning playing doubles here, and here we are, winning the tournament," said Dolgopolov, who added that he's planning on buying an apartment in Kiev with part of the prize money. "So it's pretty amazing."
Mirza and Vesnina earned a 6-0, 7-5 victory over Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Meghan Shaughnessy. The duo got together three weeks ago after Vesnina's regular partner, Vera Zvonareva, decided to focus on singles. Vesnina nearly pulled out of Indian Wells with an arm injury, but Mirza, who contended with a wrist injury for two and half years, nursed her along.
"I was like 99% thinking to not play, because it was really bad," Vesnina said. "Sania, she was like so confident. She was like, 'No, no, no. Keep playing. You'll see. It will be fine.' She knows everything. She was giving me so much advice about that.”—Matthew Cronin