Kudermetova-Mertens pair claim WTA Finals doubles title

No.4 seeds Veronika Kudermetova and Elise Mertens earned a hard-fought victory to beat defending champions Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova in the doubles championship at the WTA Finals on Monday night.

The Kudermetova-Mertens pair came back from 7-2 down in the match-tiebreak to defeat the duo of Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova 6-2, 4-6, [11-9], collecting their second team title of the season in one hour and 42 minutes.

"It's tough to say right now because of a lot of emotions. But I think we're so happy and so proud of our team," WTA.com quoted Kudermetova as saying.

"I was close last year. I think we played really consistently in this tournament. And yeah, I can't even believe we won. That super-tiebreak was 7-2? I can't even remember points," Mertens said.

Kudermetova and Mertens had three fewer unforced errors, and they converted all three of their breakpoints. It was Kudermetova and Mertens who started the match aggressively in the final. They found powerful returns to break the defending champions twice in a row and lead 4-0, finally easing to the one-set advantage.

The Czech pair were on fire for the rest of the second set, winning the next two games without the loss of a point. The match-tiebreak decided affairs, and the Czechs cruised ahead after a forehand winner by Krejcikova put them up 7-2.

Krejcikova and Siniakova saved a championship point at 9-8, but a dynamic Kudermetova crosscourt forehand gave her team a second chance at 10-9. A strong Mertens return forced a Krejcikova volley wide, and Kudermetova and Mertens had closed out the match as the winner.

"In that tiebreak when it was 2-7, I said to Elise that we need to believe, we need to stay positive, and it doesn't matter what happens, we keep working," Kudermetova said.

"I think it just kind of clicked this week. You've got some weeks it doesn't click, some weeks that it does, and this week we took our opportunities," Mertens added.

( With inputs from ANI )