Melbourne, Jan. 28 (IANS): France's Kristina Mladenovic and Croatia's Ivan Dodig were on Friday crowned the Australian Open 2022 mixed doubles champions, defeating Australian wild cards Jaimee Fourlis and Jason Kubler 6-3, 6-4 at the Melbourne Park here.
This is the second time in her career that the 28-year-old Mladenovic has emerged the Australian Open mixed doubles champion, with the previous title coming in 2014.
The win for the former top-10 player is her first mixed major crown in eight years, her third overall and second in Australia. She and Canada's Daniel Nestor reached consecutive finals in Australia in 2014 and 2015, winning the former, and the duo also won Wimbledon in 2013. Mladenovic now boasts eight total Grand Slam titles across women's and mixed doubles.
Mladenovic and Dodig cruised in the 78-minute final, which was a far cry from their previous games, which were keenly fought. The duo was stretched to a match tiebreak in three of the four matches in the earlier rounds, and rallied from a set down to defeat No.2 seeds Zhang Shuai of China and John Peers of Australia in the semifinals, 1-6, 7-5, 10-2.
Fourlis and Kubler were the third wildcard team to reach the mixed doubles championship in Melbourne in the past four years.