Good friends off the court, Timea Babos and Kristina Mladenovic were always convinced they had the potential to be a good doubles team and they were delighted last night to finally prove it with the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships title.
Babos and Mladenovic, who have been together since their surprise run to last year’s Wimbledon final, cruised to a comfortable 6-3, 6-2 win over the Spanish pair of Garbine Muguruza and Carla Suarez Navarro, the finishing inside an hour.
This was their first title together and both were thrilled to get their hands around the winners’ trophy after losing three finals last year - Paris, Wimbledon and Cincinnati.
“It was just matter of time, I guess, as we played many of the finals already last year,” said Frenchwoman Mladenovic. “We are just really delighted. We knew that at some point it will come because we are such good friends and we play amazing tennis together.
“So we are just extremely happy, especially since we discussed to play together and have high goals.”
One of the goals for the French-Hungarian duo is to clinch their spot for the year-ending championship. They missed out last year after finishing 11th in the Race to Singapore.
“This year we are playing full schedule, full year together,” said Babos. “So it makes a huge difference, because last year we only started basically with Wimbledon and then we made some huge results at the big tournaments.
“So, of course, it is our goal to get in.”
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