PARIS — Neal Skupski saved a championship point on Sunday with a backhand volley at full stretch, and for a set it kept the race alive. Then Quentin Halys and Pierre-Hugues Herbert won the match tie-break 10-8 in the Rolex Paris Masters doubles final. That defeat for Skupski and Christian Harrison decided the season’s other ranking race: Harri Heliovaara and Henry Patten will finish 2026 as the year-end ATP doubles No. 1 team.
Heliovaara and Patten were not on court. Their own week in Paris had ended in the semifinals. The French wild cards won 7-6(3), 6-7(4), 10-8 in 1 hour 53 minutes. Their championship point came at 5-6 in the second set, with Harrison and Skupski serving. Skupski reached it on the stretch, the second seeds took the set in the tie-break, and the title went to a match tie-break. Halys and Herbert served 13 aces, and each team broke serve once.
The clinch. It is the first time Heliovaara and Patten have finished a season on top of the ATP doubles team rankings. A year ago they were second. Heliovaara is the first Finnish player to be part of a year-end No. 1 doubles team. Patten keeps the honour in British hands: Julian Cash and Lloyd Glasspool, both Britons, were the 2025 year-end No. 1s.
“One of the crazy dreams comes true again,” Heliovaara said. “I think it all started a little more than a year ago in Beijing, where it all really clicked and since then we’ve probably been one of the top teams in the world and now it really shows that we were the best team in 2026.”
The season. They won 17 of their first 18 matches of 2026. Their five titles, in Adelaide, Doha, Dubai, the Masters 1000 in Madrid and Wimbledon, are the most they have won in a season. The Wimbledon title was their second in three years, and they won it the hard way: three final-set tie-breaks and eight of the nine tie-breaks they played. No men’s team had won Wimbledon twice since Bob and Mike Bryan took their second title in 2011.
They also reached the finals at Roland Garros, Miami and Queen’s Club. The Roland Garros final, lost to Marcel Granollers and Horacio Zeballos, still lifted both men to joint world No. 1 for the first time in June. Heliovaara became only the second Finnish man to reach No. 1 in doubles, after Henri Kontinen.
When they first teamed up in 2024, Patten was ranked around No. 60 and Heliovaara around No. 40. They have not changed partners since. “It’s an incredible achievement, one that goes to the very top of my list of best achievements as a tennis player,” Patten said.
The other side of the net. Harrison and Skupski, the Paris second seeds, won the Australian Open and the US Open in their first season together.
Halys and Herbert beat the top three seeds on the way to their first Masters 1000 title as a team, after match tie-break wins earlier in the week over Austin Krajicek and Nikola Mektic and over Granollers and Zeballos. Only two other teams since 1990 had won a Masters 1000 title by beating the top three seeds.
It was their second title together, after Metz in 2025, and they are the fourth all-French team to win in Paris. Herbert became the first Frenchman to win eight Masters 1000 titles. Halys is the fourth player this year to win tour-level titles in both singles and doubles. Earlier in the week his singles win over Frances Tiafoe, saving four match points, had sent Arthur Fils to Turin. “I have had a tough year and to be able to win here with Quentin is amazing,” Herbert said.
What it means for Turin. Heliovaara and Patten go to the Nitto ATP Finals, 15-22 November at the Inalpi Arena, as defending champions and as qualifiers for the third straight year. Turin can no longer change which team finishes top of the standings. It can only add a title.
The doubles field is Heliovaara and Patten; Harrison and Skupski; Granollers and Zeballos; Marcelo Arevalo and Mate Pavic; Simone Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori; Kevin Krawietz and Tim Puetz, the 2024 champions; Theo Arribage and Albano Olivetti; and the debutants Orlando Luz and Rafael Matos. The eight teams play in two round-robin groups, and the top two in each group reach the semifinals.
