TENNIS/Hsieh Su-wei wins Australian Open mixed doubles title

Taipei, Jan. 26 (CNA) Taiwanese tennis ace Hsieh Su-wei (謝淑薇) captured her first grand slam mixed doubles title Friday, teaming up with Jan Zielinski of Poland to win the Australian Open after overcoming a match point.

Teaming up for the first time, Hsieh and Zielinski topped the 2021 and 2022 Wimbledon mixed doubles champions, second-seeds American Desirae Krawczyk and Brit Neal Skupski, 6-7 (5), 6-4, 1-0 [11-9] in a tightly contested match that took nearly two hours.

The winners, seeded third in the event, found themselves down 5-3 in the first set after Hsieh had her service game broken and Krawczyk held her serve, but fought back by breaking Skupsi when he served for the set.

In the tiebreaker, however, the second-seeded Krawczyk and Skupski took the set on their first set point at 6-5 on an unforced error.

Hsieh and Zielinski again fell behind in the second set on a break of a Zielinski service game, but down 4-2, they won the next four games, including fighting back from 40-15 down on Skupsi's serve at 4-4, to even up the match.

In the super tiebreaker, Hsieh and Zielinski went up 6-2, but their opponents won five of the next six points and had a match point at 9-8.

Hsieh saved it with a solid volley off a Skupsi return of serve and an easy smash to make it 9-9, and she and Zielinski converted their first match point at 10-9 when Skupsi could barely get his racket on a return of a Krawczyk serve by Hsieh's Polish teammate.

Hsieh said afterwards that the victory was very "exciting," and she praised Zielinski for being "outstanding."

With the victory, Hsieh became the first Taiwanese player to win a mixed doubles title at the Australian Open, and Zielinski became the first player from Poland to capture a mixed doubles grand slam crown.

Hsieh's Australian Open is not over yet, however. She and Elise Mertens of Belgium, seeded second at the Australian Open, will face 11th seeds Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia and Ukraine's Lyudmyla Kichenok in the women's doubles finals on Sunday.

Hsieh has won six women's doubles grand slam titles -- four at Wimbledon (2013, 2019, 2021 and 2023) and two at the French Open (2014 and 2023) -- but her best result at the Australian Open was reaching the finals in 2020 with Barbora Strycova of the Czech Republic.