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Nestor, Srebotnik triumph in mixed doubles

Canadian Daniel Nestor and Slovenia’s Katarina Srebotnik won the Australian Open mixed doubles title when they beat Australian Paul Hanley and Taiwan’s Chan Yung-Jan on Sunday.

The second seeds needed a deciding match tiebreaker to win the final 6-3, 3-6, 10-7 at Rod Laver Arena, where officials closed the roof as temperatures soared close to 40 deg C (104 F) on the hottest day of the tournament.

Katarina Srebotnik of Slovakia (2/L) and Daniel Nestor of Canada (L) pose after victory in their mixed doubles match against Yung-Jan Chan of Taiwan (2R) and Paul Hanley of Australia (R) on the final day of the Australian Open Tennis tournament in Melbourne on January 30, 2011. Srebotnik and Nestor won 6-3. 3-6. 10-7. –AFP

Hanley and Chan started well, breaking serve in the third game of the match, but their opponents won six of the next seven games to take the first set.

The Australian/Taiwanese pair again claimed an early break in the second and this time held on to take the set and level the match. However Nestor and Srebotnik quickly seized control of the tiebreaker to claim the trophy.

It gave 38-year-old doubles specialist Nestor his second Australian Open mixed doubles title after he won in 2007 with Russia’s Elena Likhovtseva.

The Canadian has also won six Grand Slam men’s doubles titles, including the 2002 Australian Open. It was Srebotnik’s fifth Grand Slam mixed doubles title, with a fourth partner.

Hanley and Chan had both been seeking their first Grand Slam triumph.