Babos and Mladenovic Make History with WTA Finals Title Defense

Timea Babos and Kristina Mladenovic engineered the first WTA Finals doubles repeat in eleven years on Sunday in Shenzhen as the French-Hungarian duo took out Hsieh Su-Wei and Barbora Strycova 6-1 6-3. They became the first duo to repeat at the WTA's prestigious season-ending event since Cara Black and Liezel Huber (2007-2008). With the win Babos becomes the first woman to win three consecutive doubles titles at the WTA finals since Lindsay Davenport (1996-98 with three different partners). Babos won the title in 2017 with Andrea Sestini-Hlavackova.

Timea Babos three-peats @WTAFinals, having won the title in 2017 with Andrea Hlavackova-Sestini and with Kristina Mladenovic in 2018 and 2019. The last player to win three in a row was Lindsay Davenport in 1996 (w/ Fernandez), 1997 (w/ Novotna), and 1998 (w/ Zvereva). pic.twitter.com/Afv1ArqQ5d

— WTA Insider (@WTA_insider) November 3, 2019

Babos and Mladenovic defeated Czechs Katerina Siniakova and Barbora Krejcikova in last year’s final at Singapore. This year’s Roland Garros champions went a perfect 5-0 in Shenzhen and improved to 1-1 by avenging their loss in the Wimbledon final to Hsieh and Strycova. They dominated the contest from start to finish, breaking Hsieh and Strycova 5 times on 12 opportunities and only dropping four of 27 first-serve points as a tandem. Despite the loss in the final, Strycova will take home the WTA’s year-end No.1 ranking in 2019.

Tremendous season for Barbora Strycova. Wimbledon singles semifinalist, @Wimbledon doubles champion (w/ Hsieh) and now will finish as the Doubles Year-End World No.1. pic.twitter.com/Vzz1mRNZOp

— WTA Insider (@WTA_insider) November 2, 2019

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