Thursday, September 6, 2012

Makarova and Soares win U.S. Open mixed doubles title

The unseeded team of Ekaterina Makarova and Bruno Soares won the U.S. Open mixed doubles championship today. They defeated 4th seeds Kveta Peschke and Marcin Matkowski 6-7(8), 6-1, 12-10. Makarova and Soares, who had played together twice before, signed up for mixed doubles about 30 seconds before the deadline. They played three super-tiebreaks, and they took out both Bryan brothers (Bob Bryan and Kim Clijsters, Mike Bryan and Lisa Raymond) along the way.

Makarova and Soares led 8-4 in the super-tiebreak, but Peschke and Matkowski caught up, and even held two match points. Makarova and Soares won on their first match point, shortly after Makarova hit what may have been the shot of the match, ending a thrilling rally involving all four players.

This was Peschke's third U.S. Open mixed doubles final, and her third loss.

In women's doubles, 2nd seeds Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci defeated 8th seeds Nuria Llagostera Vives and Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez 6-3, 6-2 in the semifinals. Also advancing to the final were 3rd seeds Andrea Hlavackova and Lucie Safarova. They defeated 16th seeds Hsieh Su-Wei and Anabel Medina Garrigues 7-6, 6-4.

Hlavackova and Hradecka defeated Errani and Vinci this year at Wimbledon, and again in Cincinnati.

In junior play, top seed Taylor Townsend won both her second and third rounds today. Victoria Duval defeated Wimbledon champion Eugenie Bouchard in the second round.

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