{"id":450525,"date":"2026-01-31T23:48:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T23:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/450525\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T23:48:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T23:48:10","slug":"elise-mertens-zhang-shuai-win-australian-open-doubles-crown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/450525\/","title":{"rendered":"Elise Mertens, Zhang Shuai win Australian Open doubles crown"},"content":{"rendered":"

Elise Mertens<\/a> marked her return to the No. 1 ranking in women’s doubles by combining with China’s Zhang Shuai<\/a> to win the Australian Open title Saturday.<\/p>\n

Back together after four years apart as a team, Mertens and Zhang trailed 3-0 and 4-1 in the first set but rallied to beat Anna Danilina<\/a> of Kazakhstan and Serbia’s Aleksandra Krunic<\/a> 7-6 (4), 6-4. Mertens and Zhang led the final set 5-0 before withstanding a comeback attempt when Danilina and Krunic won four straight games.<\/p>\n

Currently ranked No. 6 in doubles, Mertens, who won the Wimbledon doubles title last year with Veronika Kudermetova<\/a>, will return to the No. 1 ranking after the Australian Open.<\/p>\n

That will mark the Belgian player’s 40th cumulative week as No. 1 in doubles and was guaranteed regardless of the outcome of the final.<\/p>\n

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The win Saturday was Mertens’ sixth Grand Slam doubles title, including 2021 and 2024 at Melbourne Park. Zhang now has three, including the 2019 Australian Open and 2021 US Open.<\/p>\n

It was their first Grand Slam trophy as a team, having lost the 2022 Wimbledon final in their last appearance together.<\/p>\n

“This is like cherry on the cake,” Mertens said. “We paired up as a team very last-minute. … This was our first tournament back together. In the second round, we saved three match points, so that kind of took us to another level. An unbelievable two weeks.”<\/p>\n

Mertens reached the fourth round of women’s singles at Melbourne Park this year before being beaten by eventual finalist Elena Rybakina<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Zhang said she and Mertens adapt well.<\/p>\n

“We know how to play finals. We know how to win finals,” Zhang said. “We are both very calm. If something doesn’t work … we always adjust.”<\/p>\n

The Associated Press contributed to this report. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Elise Mertens marked her return to the No. 1 ranking in women’s doubles by combining with China’s Zhang…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":450526,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":{"0":"post-450525","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=450525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450525\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}