Serbian tennis player Aleksandra Krunić and Kazakhstan’s Anna Danilina failed to win the women’s doubles title at the Australian Open, as they were defeated in the final on the night between Friday and Saturday by the Belgian-Chinese pair Elise Mertens and Shuai Zhang 6(4):7, 4:6.
They were beaten after one hour and 50 minutes of play.
Krunić and Danilina led 3:0 and 4:1 in the first set, but the Belgian and the Chinese player managed to come back and prevail in the tie-break. In the second set, Mertens and Zhang took a 5:0 lead and then withstood the comeback by Danilina and Krunić, who won four consecutive games.
Mertens, currently the world No. 6 doubles player, will return to the No. 1 spot in the world after the Australian Open. This will be her 40th total week at the top of the WTA doubles rankings, and the return to first place was secured regardless of the outcome of the final.
This is Mertens’ sixth Grand Slam doubles title, including trophies won in Melbourne in 2021 and 2024. Shuai Zhang now has three Grand Slam doubles titles, the Australian Open in 2019 and the US Open in 2021, along with this year’s trophy. For Mertens and Zhang, this is their first Grand Slam title as a pair, after losing the Wimbledon final in 2022.
In the men’s doubles, the title was won by American Christian Harrison and Briton Neal Skupski, after they defeated the Australian pair Jason Kubler – Marc Polmans 7:6(4), 6:4 in the final.
The sixth seeds claimed the victory after one hour and 50 minutes.
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Source: Nedeljnik, Foto: Instagram/AlexKrunic