A fantastic Tuesday for Croatian tennis in Melbourne, as Nikola Mektić and Mate Pavić, Ivan Dodig and Slovak partner Filip Polašek, and Darija Jurak and Serbian partner Nina Stojanović have all advanced to the Australian Open semifinals in the doubles competition!
Nikola and Mate still have not tasted defeat in 2021 and reached the 12th consecutive victory in the quarterfinal celebration against the 8th seed, Frenchman Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut – 6:4, 4:6, 7:6 (10:3).
The winners were decided by the tie-break of the third set, in which Herbert and Mahut took the 3:2 lead, and Mektić and Pavić then took eight consecutive points to celebrate in the end.
The 2nd-seeded team in the fight for the grand final will play against Ivan Dodig and Filip Polašek (9th-seed) who defeated the Australian team of Matthew Ebden and John-Patrick Smith in the quarterfinals – 6:4, 2:6, 6:2. The Croatian-Slovak duo had a key break to win in the third game of the deciding set, and then drew 15:40 in the next game, after which the Australians no longer had a chance to return.
Darija Jurak reached the best result of her career at the age of 37. Namely, Darija and her 12-year-younger Serbian partner Nina Stojanović reached the semifinals of women’s doubles competition after winning against the Serbian-Italian team Aleksandra Krunić / Martina Trevisan – 6:7 (3), 6:3, 6:2.
After losing the first set, Jurak and Stojanović did not have any problems on the way to a new victory. In the fight for the grand final, they will play the 3rd-seeded Czech team, Barbora Krejčíková and Katerina Siniaková.
On the way to the finals, the Croatian-Serbian women’s doubles team also shocked the first seed Su-Wei Hsieh and Barbora Strýcová.
Bravo!
Source: HTS
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