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Australia’s Samantha Stosur won the Wimbledon mixed doubles title with American partner Bob Bryan today.
The pair upset top-seeded duo Katarina Srebotnik of Slovenia and Bryan’s twin brother, Mike, 7-5 6-4 in a match lasting just over an hour and ending in near darkness because of rain delays.
Stosur said the conditions were the darkest she had ever played in, but the match remained good-natured throughout.
“I’m really happy,” Stosur said.
“It was ridiculously dark out there.”
After several rain interruptions to the men’s singles final between eventual winner Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, the doubles match was switched from Centre Court to Court No.1 and did not start until 8.32pm (local time).
With Bob Bryan and Stosur one set up and leading 3-1 in the second, there were discussions about whether to suspend the match because of bad light but the players decided to continue.
“We were keen,” Stosur said.
“We only needed three more games and Bob was serving two of them, and you’d have to think you’d be in pretty good shape to hold that.
“If it was even maybe we would have stopped.”
Stosur and Bob Bryan managed to stop the second set from becoming even when they saved two break points on the Australian’s serve in the eighth game.
They held when Srebotnik, knowing she had no way to contend with a Bob Bryan smash in the conditions, turned her back as he advanced and the American hammered the ball over the net, exclaiming “sorry” as he did so.
With Bob Bryan serving for the championship, the Australian-American pairing clinched victory on the first of three match points when Mike Bryan hit a return into the net.
Stosur became the first Australian to win a mixed doubles title at Wimbledon since Todd Woodbridge joined Czech Helena Sukova for victory in 1994, and the first Australian woman since Liz Smylie joined compatriot John Fitzgerald to win in 1991.
There were five Australians in junior finals today, but only Jessica Moore emerged with a victory when she and Slovenian partner Polona Hercog won the girls’ doubles title.
The sixth-seeded duo, who won this year’s French Open title, defeated 17-year-old Moore’s compatriots Isabella Holland and Sally Peers 6-3 1-6 6-2.
“Getting the trophy was cool but it felt weird to hold it up and think that we were holding up Wimbledon trophies,” Moore told the International Tennis Federation website.
In the boys’ doubles final, No.3-seeded Australians Matt Reid and Bernard Tomic suffered an upset loss to Taiwanese pair Cheng-Peng Hsieh and Tsung-Hua Yang 6-4 2-6 12-10.
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