By Chris Oddo | Friday January 26, 2018
Kristina Mladenovic and Timea Babos captured their first major title as a team by defeating Ekaterina Makarova and Eleana Vesnina in the final.
Photo Source: Scott Barbour/Getty
Kristina Mladenovic and Timea Babos won their first Grand Slam title as a team and denied No.2-seeded Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina the Career Golden Slam with a 6-4, 6-3 victory in Friday’s women’s doubles final.
Mladenovic and Babos were playing together for the first time since the 2015 WTA Finals. Previously they were runner-ups at 2014 Wimbledon, and won three team titles in 2015. The defeeated the No.1, No.8 and No.2-seeded teams en route to their fourth title as a team.
Mladenovic captures her second major women’s doubles title to go with two mixed titles while Babos wins her first major title of any kind.
Both Mladenovic and Babos are the first women from their respective countries to capture the Australian Open women’s doubles title.
The French-Hungarian pairing rallied from 4-2 down to take the opener with four games on the trot. After taking a 3-1 lead in set two they surrendered the break but managed to win the final three games on the trot to clinch the title in 80 minutes.