LONDON — A Chinese and French partnership made history at Wimbledon on Sunday, as Guo Hanyu and Kristina Mladenovic defeated second seeds Gabriela Dabrowski and Luisa Stefani 6-3, 7-5 to claim the women’s doubles championship — their first major title as a team.
Seeded tenth heading into the final, Guo and Mladenovic came out firing, quickly picking apart Dabrowski’s early lob attempts and storming to a commanding 5-0 lead in the opening set. The Canadian-Brazilian duo of Dabrowski and Stefani rallied to take three straight games, but the deficit proved too steep to overcome, and the first set went to the underdogs.
The second set was a tighter affair. Dabrowski and Stefani looked far more comfortable and pressed hard for a service break, but Guo and Mladenovic held firm, with Mladenovic’s sharp cross-court forehands keeping the match level at 5-5.
The decisive moment came in the 11th game, when Guo’s backhand returns at the net created a break point opportunity. The 28-year-old, playing in her first Grand Slam final, converted it with a precisely angled cross-court backhand to put her side one game away from the title.
With Mladenovic serving for the championship, she closed things out in clinical fashion — a forehand winner that her opponents could only send back into the net, sealing the victory and the Wimbledon crown.
