London: The Brazilian-Polish men’s doubles pair of Marcelo Melo and Lukasz Kubot took a marathon five sets to overcome the Austrian-Croatian pair of Oliver Marach and Mate Pavic in the final at Wimbledon.
It took four hours and 39 minutes of intense serve-dominated play on Saturday for fourth seeds Kubot and Melo to overcome their valiant No.16 seeded rivals 5-7, 7-5, 7-6(2), 3-6, 13-11.
The match saw seven points won from the eight played after the match resumed following a 10-minute suspension to allow the Centre Court roof to close after drizzle, as Melo and Kubot bagged their first Grand Slam title as a pair.
“I said to Lukasz before the match, ‘Man, I did everything on my life to be here in this court. I want to enjoy as much as I can. I reached the final once before [with Ivan Dodig, losing to the Bryan brothers in 2013], but now I want to win, and I can do it’,” Melo told Wimbledon website.
“After they closed the roof it was perfect for us, especially to break him love-40. The energy was so high, the atmosphere on court unbelievable. No words to describe,” he added.
With this win, Melo will return to the No.1 ranking in men’s doubles on Monday.
Olympic champions Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina of Russia won their first Wimbledon women’s doubles title on Saturday with a 6-0, 6-0 rout of Hao-Ching Chan and Monica Niculescu.
In a 55-minute final — which followed the near-five-hour men’s doubles championship epic — the second-seeded Russians collected a third Slam doubles title as a team.
They also won the 2013 French Open and 2014 US Open women’s doubles crowns.
Saturday’s rout of their Taiwan-Romanian rivals, playing just their second event together, was only the second time a women’s doubles final at Wimbledon had been decided by a double-bagel scoreline.
