American Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Horia Tecau of Romania won the Australian Open mixed doubles title on Sunday, beating Indian-Russian pairing Leander Paes and Elena Vesnina in a match tie-break.
The eighth seeds ran away with the decider after Paes and Vesnina levelled the match, winning 6-3, 5-7, 10/3 in 1hr 42min.
Mattek-Sands and Tecau showed enormous composure to overcome the vastly experienced Paes and his Russian partner. Of the four players on court, only doubles specialist Paes had previously won a grand slam title.
The veteran Indian, who won the men’s doubles with Radek Stepanek on Saturday, has won 13 grand slam doubles and mixed doubles titles.
Mattek-Sands was superb in the first set as the underdogs took control and only began to tighten up towards the end of the second set.
But she recovered in the match tie-break as she and Tecau opened a 9-3 lead and sealed the championship when the Romanian put a simple volley into the open court.
“We almost didn’t play mixed this year but we pulled through and won our first final,” said Mattek-Sands, who wore American football-style face paint below her eyes.
