The men’s doubles final at the BNP Paribas Open brings together the top-ranked doubles duo and a pair of predominantly singles players who have nonetheless flourished together.

Marcelo Arevalo and Mate Pavic — the joint No. 1s in doubles — ended the nine match winning streak of wild cards Christian Harrison and Evan King 6-3, 6-4 before Sebastian Korda and Jordan Thompson topped Fernando Romboli and John Patrick Smith 3-6, 6-3 [10-8] in Friday’s second semifinal.

“I think we were both asleep at the start, but credit to them, they played so well and have been playing well all week,” Thompson, a Grand Slam doubles champ, told the crowd at Stadium 1 afterwards. “They took advantage of that and we just lifted our energy and managed to sneak it out, because Sebi is so clutch.”

Korda and the Aussie won the Madrid Masters last year while Brazil’s Romboli and Australia’s Smith were 36-year-old alternates ranked in the 80s who were playing together for the first time this year.

All three of their previous matches went to match tiebreaks, including against Olympic silver medalists Austin Krajicek and Rajeev Ram of the US. Krajicek and Ram led 7-3 in the match tiebreak, only to see their opponents hit back. When Romboli and Smith led the match tiebreak 3-0 in the semifinals, the odds swung in their favor once again.

But a miscue from Romboli — he didn’t play a Thompson return when he thought the ball was going long — made it 3-1. Romboli might have still been thinking about that on the next point, as he double faulted. Smith took over later by slamming serves and crushing a forehand return to give his side a 6-4 advantage. Another fine return by Smith helped increase the lead to 8-6.

Romboli and Smith, though, couldn’t find too many first serves thereafter. Then things turned the other way. Korda — watched by dad Petr, who lost the 1994 singles final to Pete Sampras in five sets — grabbed hold of the final two points. The Floridian pummeled a forehand down the line and ended proceedings with an equally potent serve.

“I didn’t do anything to help out during the whole tiebreak, so I told (Thompson), ‘I have to
give you something,’” said Korda. “It worked out pretty well.”

Arevalo of El Salvador and Croatia’s Pavic are both Grand Slam winners but neither had ever played in the final in Indian Wells. They’ve stormed to the final, not conceding a single set. The pair faced off against singles players in their first three matches — coming off a quarterfinal victory over good friends Matteo Berrettini and Lorenzo Sonego.

King and Harrison entered the contest higher than them in the calendar year standings (in
third). Since losing their opener in Montpellier at the end of January, Harrison and King had gone 18-1. The Americans even won two titles as qualifiers, both 500 categories, in Dallas and Acapulco.

But Arevalo and Pavic never gave them much of a chance. In the first set, Arevalo and Pavic only lost four points on serve. They broke early in the second and led 3-1. The lone real opportunity for King and Harrison came when they earned a first break point at 2-3.

Arevalo’s body serve to King, though, put an end to the threat. Looking deflated, Harrison and King dropped serve again to trail 5-2. Even though one break was recovered, the comeback stopped there.

In Saturday’s women’s doubles final, Asia Muhammad of the US and Demi Schuurs of the Netherlands meet Tereza Mihalikova of Slovakia and Olivia Nicholls of Great Britain. It marks the first all unseeded women’s doubles final in Indian Wells since 2016.