Mertens And Hsieh Reunion Again Achieves Grand Slam Success

JAKARTA - Mertens and Hsieh Su-wei's decision to reunite this season has paid off. They won the Australian Open 2024 women's doubles.

Mertens and Su-wei first teamed up in a major tournament at the US Open 2021. Now, their reunion as the second seed successfully won the Australian Women's Doubles Grand Slam trophy Open 2024 with a landslide victory of 6-1 and 7-5 in the final against Lyudmyla Kichenok (Ukraine) and Jelena Ostappenko (Latvia) at Rod Laver Arena, Sunday, January 28, 2024.

This is the victory of the Grand Slam of the two Mertens and Hsieh pairs following their success at Wimbledon 2021.

They took the dominant start against the 11th seed by winning the opening set in 27 minutes.

Kichenok and Ostapenko tried their best to reduce this momentum by breaking Mertens services in the opening game which lasted 12 minutes in the second set.

However, this advantage did not last long. Mertens/Hsieh regain control building a 5-3 advantage, but were unable to serve in the ninth game.

They crushed Kichenok and Ostapenko's hopes of making an impressive comeback by breaking the 12th game to close the win in 92 minutes.

The result stopped well at the start of this season for Ostapenko who is in 29th position in the world. Previously, he won the WTA 500 title in Brisbane earlier this month and recorded nine consecutive wins.

Meanwhile, for Hsieh, this is two impressive weeks in Melbourne. This is the eighth Grand Slam double title in the 38-year-old and second at the 2024 Australian Open.

He also grabbed the trophy in the mixed doubles the day before with Jan Zielinski (Poland).

Hsieh became the first woman in two decades to win women's doubles and mixed doubles titles at the Australian Open the same year. Previously, the record was inscribed by Australian tennis player, Rennae Stubbs, in 2000.

He became the third tennis player to make this feat since changing his name to the Australian Open in 1969. This achievement matched the Margaret Court in 1969.

Then, for Mertens, the Australian Open 2024 title is the second. He won the Australian Open trophy in the women's doubles with Aryna Sabalenka in 2021. In total, he has collected four major doubles titles.

The 27-year-old Belgian will return to world number one after winning the title in Melbourne. Prior to the tournament, Mertens occupied second place in the world.

Meanwhile, Hsieh will rise to second in the world. Now she has held three of the women's Grand Slam titles after winning at Roland-Garros (with Wang Xinyu/China) and Wimbledon (with Barbora Strycova/Republic Ceska) last season.

Hsieh was up four places considering that before the Australian Open 2024 tournament he lived in the sixth ladder in the world.