Barbora Strycova, the Czech veteran, achieved a remarkable feat at Wimbledon. Just three days after her disappointing loss in the singles semifinals, she emerged victorious in the women’s doubles alongside Hsieh Su-wei. The duo defeated Gabriela Dabrowski of Canada and Xu Yifan of China with a score of 6-2, 6-4 on the prestigious Centre Court. Strycova, overwhelmed with emotions, expressed her indescribable feelings, describing the experience as both unreal and amazing. Furthermore, her triumph will also see her rise to the top spot in the doubles rankings, solidifying her status as a formidable force in the tennis world.
The match originally set for Saturday was rescheduled for Sunday due to the prolonged men’s doubles final, which concluded after five sets. Consequently, the women’s doubles took place after the men’s singles final on Centre Court, while the mixed doubles was moved to No. 1 Court.
Strycova expressed her frustration with the delay on Saturday, stating, “We were waiting for a long time. Yesterday was challenging because we were all set and suddenly the supervisor informed us of the postponement. If they had just split sets, we would have canceled. We were in the middle of warming up. It was a difficult situation.”
Even on Sunday, there was more waiting involved. The men’s singles final between Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer extended to a tiebreaker at 12-12 in the fifth set, marking the first year this rule had been implemented.
Hsieh, a native of Taiwan, expressed her gratitude for the rule changes at Wimbledon, stating, “I’m glad that Wimbledon changed the rules. Otherwise, I would have continued eating and gained weight.” Meanwhile, the 33-year-old Strycova had an impressive singles performance at this year’s Wimbledon, reaching the semifinals and becoming the oldest first-time major semifinalist in the professional era. Unfortunately, she was defeated by Serena Williams with a score of 6-1, 6-2. On the other hand, Hsieh achieved her third Grand Slam doubles title, having previously won the 2013 Wimbledon and 2014 French Open titles with her partner Peng Shuai. Strycova and Hsieh have played together only 10 times, with nine of those partnerships occurring this season. Despite their limited experience as a team, they managed to win three titles this year, including one on grass in Birmingham prior to Wimbledon. However, they were eliminated in the third round at the French Open.
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