Vilariño and Rubio claim second CUPRA FIP Tour title in Baku

Nacho Vilariño and Gonzalo Rubio did exactly what the top-ranked pair in Baku were expected to do: they controlled the FIP Bronze Baku II from start to finish and finished the job with a 6-4, 6-2 straight-sets win over Juan Pablo Dametto and Felipe Calleja.

The title was the second doubles trophy of the season for Vilariño and Rubio on the CUPRA FIP Tour, and it fit the script of a pairing that arrived in Azerbaijan with both momentum and a clear edge. Baku staged the event from July 1 to July 5, 2026, with €8,500 in total prize money, and Vilariño and Rubio entered as the men’s top seed with 2,515 points. They rarely looked like a team vulnerable to an upset, and the final reflected that control.

Their run was defined less by crisis than by efficient problem-solving. Vilariño and Rubio dropped only one set all week, and even that was absorbed in a quarter-final against Julian Prins and Youp De Kroon, when they recovered from losing the opener 6-7 to win 6-3, 7-5. From there, they moved through the semi-finals with a 6-3, 6-2 win over Diego Arredendo and Mateo Alvarez before handling the title match against Dametto and Calleja without allowing the final to drift into anything more complicated than a routine finish.

The Baku title also reinforced the way Vilariño and Rubio have been building their season. Their earlier CUPRA FIP Tour win came in Mumbai, where they beat Thijs Roper and Willy Tiger Slaryd 6-3, 6-1 in the final. That victory gave Rubio his first CUPRA FIP Tour title of 2026, and Baku became the pair’s second together, another clean result for a partnership that has been finding ways to end weeks on its own terms.

The women’s draw followed a similar pattern at the top of the seeding. Daria Kucheriavaia and Barbara Las Heras, the No. 1 seeds with 1,110 points, won the title after coming back to defeat Costanca Gorito and Steffi Merah 2-6, 6-2, 6-3. Kucheriavaia and Las Heras had also won the FIP Bronze Abu Dhabi at the end of May, while Las Heras arrived with added circuit mileage after reaching the round of 16 at Premier Padel Valencia P1. In Baku, the strongest pairs protected their position and turned ranking order into trophies.