Australian Open
Lyudmyla Kichenok (54) Jelena Ostapenko Hsieh Su-Wei (278) Elise Mertens
Elise Mertens has won a fourth Grand Slam title. Our compatriot was the best in the doubles final of the Australian Open together with the Taiwanese Hsieh Su-Wei. The score was 6-1, 7-5 against the Ukrainian Lyudmyla Kichenok and the Latvian Yelena Ostapenko.
The logic of the numbers was respected: Mertens/Hsieh were the second seed, Kichenok/Ostapenko were seeded eleventh in Melbourne.
Mertens and Hsieh had already done the most difficult thing in the semi-finals. Then they faced double titleholders Katarina Siniakova and Storm Hunter for more than 2.5 hours.
Today was over in 1.5 hours. In the first game, Mertens/Hsieh were unable to capitalize on a break point, but then 6 games in a row followed: 6-1 in 26 minutes.
Perhaps it went a little too easy, because in set 2 the two fell behind 0-2 after a counterbreak. But they went on and on. At 3-5 they failed to serve out the match, but after 1 hour and 8 minutes a break at love was enough for the title: 7-5.
(read more below photo)
2nd time Australian Open, again number 1
Mertens won the US Open in 2019 and the Australian Open in 2021 with Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka, and Wimbledon also followed in 2021 with Hsieh.
Our 28-year-old compatriot, who has 19 doubles titles, also lost 2 Grand Slam finals. She was runner-up at Wimbledon in both 2022 (alongside the Chinese Zhang Shuai) and 2023 (alongside Storm Hunter).
Tomorrow, Mertens will replace Hunter, her former doubles partner, as the new number 1 in the world in the WTA doubles rankings. Mertens, who moves up one place, became number 1 in the world in doubles for the first time in May 2021.
Spread over seven periods, she has led the WTA rankings for 27 weeks.
In the singles tournament, Elise Mertens (WTA-28) was eliminated in the second round last week. Her best performance down-under remains a semi-final in 2018 on her debut.
(tweets below photo)
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2024-01-28 06:02:00
#WATCH #Elise #Mertens #Taiwanese #Hsieh #win #Australian #Open #womens #doubles
