Alexa Guarachi and Desirae Krawczyk have won their third WTA doubles title with a tightly-fought victory over Hayley Carter and Luisa Stefani at the Adelaide International.
The 2020 Roland Garros finalists dropped an entertaining opening set before their aggression and big-match experience shone through.
The No.3 seeds were joyous as they clinched a 6-7(4) 6-4 [10-3] victory, ending their Australian swing on a high after bowing out in the third round at AO 2021.
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Guarachi and Krawczyk were up against a pair who had shown excellent form in recent months.
“I think we knew they were going to be a tough team to beat. I think we just went out there, kind of just played our game, kind of stuck to what we do best,” Krawczyk said.
Carter and Stefani had earlier in 2021 reached the WTA Abu Dhabi final and had built a win-loss record of 33-13 across the past two seasons.
And it was the American-Brazilian combination who broke first when Carter played an off-forehand winner for a 4-3 lead.
Guarachi and Krawczyk broke straight back, but Carter and Stefani broke again in 11th game when Stefani bounded athletically all over the court to help her team come out on top of an entertaining rally.
They earned two set points in the following game, yet despite not converting, they were the better pair in the tiebreak and took an early lead.
As the stands continued to fill up at Memorial Drive Centre Court, the Roland Garros finalists made their move.
Feasting on Carter’s slow first delivery, they broke serve for a 2-1 lead when Krawczyk slotted a backhand return winner down the line.
She and Guarachi maintained this advantage for the remainder of the set, and a match tiebreak was required to separate the teams.
At this point, Guarachi and Krawczyk wrenched control of the match, taking a 7-0 lead which proved insurmountable.
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“I think we started the tournament with some really tough matches. We didn’t necessarily play our best tennis in those matches. We just kind of stayed tough. Mentally we played well under pressure,” Guarachi said.
“I think we used that to our advantage, especially today in the big moments: we’ve been here before, we’ve had some really tough matches this week, so this is no big deal.”
They arrived at championship point when Guarachi, attempting to split her opponents down the middle with a forehand, instead clipped the tape with her shot, which sailed over Carter and Stefani’s heads for a winner.
And they clinched the next point for their first hard-court title as a duo.
“Once the 10-point breaker started, everybody was up, excited, cheering, I got kind of got chills. As a doubles team, we really don’t get that many fans,” Krawczyk said.
“It was awesome to have that experience, to get this crowd going, give them a good match. I think we did that.”