WIMBLEDON, England (AP) — Hsieh Su-Wei of Taiwan and Barbora Strycova of the Czech Republic won their second Wimbledon doubles title as a pairing by beating Elise Mertens of Belgium and Storm Hunter of Australia 7-5, 6-4 Sunday on Centre Court.
Hsieh converted their second match point with a backhand as the 2019 champions broke in the final game of the second set.
Strycova came out of retirement this year after giving birth to a son, and said she expects this to be her last Wimbledon.
“I couldn’t ask for a better finish,” Strycova said. “Last year I texted Su-Wei, ‘Let’s try to play Wimbledon 2023 just to come back and feel the atmosphere. There is no COVID anymore.’ She was like, ‘Yeah, let’s do that. Let’s just have fun.’ Here we are with the trophy. It’s crazy.”
Hsieh has now won the women's doubles title the last three times she played at the grass-court Grand Slam tournament — she also teamed up with Mertens to lift the trophy in 2021. The 2020 edition was canceled because of the pandemic, and she was injured in 2022.
It's also a second straight Grand Slam title for Hsieh, who teamed up with Wang Xinyu of China to win the French Open doubles tournament in June.
Hsieh and Strycova are both 37, making them the oldest women's doubles pair by combined age to even reach a Grand Slam final, breaking a mark set by Liezel Huber and Lisa Raymond, who were 35 and 38, respectively, when they won the U.S. Open in 2021.
Mertens was looking for her fourth Grand Slam title overall, while Storm was trying to win her first.
___
AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
