Flavia Pennetta became the first Italian to lift an Australian Open trophy yesterday when she won the women’s doubles with Argentina’s Gisela Dulko.
The two weathered a furious onslaught from Russia’s Maria Kirilenko and Victoria Azarenka of Belarus to win 2-6, 7-5, 6-1. Both players’ maiden Grand Slam doubles title came in their first major final together.
“I’m happy, it’s special, you know,” Pennetta said about her achievement. “It’s a Grand Slam -- it’s something really amazing for me.”
Pennetta and Dulko had looked in serious trouble as Kirilenko and Azarenka began strongly, dominating their opponents powerful groundstrokes, and they were quickly down a set and a break.
“We were like in shock — I think a set and 4-1 down,” Dulko said. “In the changeover, we were looking at each other and saying: ‘C’mon, we play less than an hour. We cannot finish the match playing less than an hour in the final.’”
“I don’t know. We just tried to go for it, don’t try to wait for them, try to play more aggressive, because I think until this moment we couldn’t find a good way to play, to win the match,” she said. “So we just kept fighting and trying.”
Azaranka served for the match at 5-4 but the top seeds broke back and then won three games in a row to level the match at one set each.
From that point the resistance was broken as Azarenka in particular struggled against the consistency of the Italian-Argentine pair.
Dulko and Pennetta broke early in the decider then ran away with it to wrap up victory in two hours 11 minutes, yelling in delight and hugging each other as Azarenka crashed the final backhand into the net.
The win means Dulko remains as the world’s top-ranked doubles player while Pennetta stays second.
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