With a second consecutive Australian Open mixed doubles title on the horizon, the records are growing by the match. Gadecki and Peers are hoping to become the first pair to successfully defend their title at the Australian Open since Jana Novotna and Jim Pugh in 1989, and the first all-Australian pair to do so since Margaret Court and Ken Fletcher 62 years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The French pairing of Mladenovic and Manuel Guinard await Gadecki and Peers in Friday’s final.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s incredible. When you start hearing some of those records, you pinch yourself a little bit,\u201d Peers said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur job first of all was to get ourselves to the final, now we\u2019ll relax, watch [the other semifinal] and get ready for Friday.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dabrowski and Stefani take long road to doubles semifinals<\/p>\n
Gabriela Dabrowski<\/a> and Luisa Stefani<\/a>, or \u2018Stefanowski\u2019 as they refer to themselves, have had their fair share of setbacks since they last reached a Grand Slam semifinal together.<\/p>\n Most recently progressing to the semifinals of a major as a duo at US Open 2021, they were forced to retire mid-match after Stefani tore her ACL. Dabrowski also dealt with her own adversity after being diagnosed with breast cancer in April 2024.<\/p>\n Now they are back to the penultimate stage together after upsetting No.3 seeds and Australian Open 2025 finalists Hsieh Su-wei and Jelena Ostapenko 6-1 7-6(5).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n It\u2019s Stefani\u2019s first semifinal at Melbourne Park, and the Brazilian is the healthiest she has been for a while.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been a long road, a lot has happened both on and off the court. We had such a special friendship and relationship, and [our] partnership now is coming back together after a tough few years,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel like this is the best I\u2019ve felt in many years since my injury.<\/p>\n \u201cAustralia is one of my favourite places to play, so I\u2019m so happy. There\u2019s no place I\u2019d rather be right now. It\u2019s really nice to be here with Gabby, getting through to another semifinal. This is our new version, Stefanowski 3.0. Let\u2019s see where we can go with this.\u201d<\/p>\n Competing as a duo for the first time since Roland Garros 2023, Dabrowski is glad to be back playing with one of her closest friends on tour.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s a really beautiful and special thing. I think it\u2019s something rare out here on the tour to play doubles with one of your closest friends, someone who has been through so much adversity. Someone who has been an amazing support to me through a lot of ups and downs, too,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Dabrowski and Stefani will now face No.7 seeds Anna Danilina<\/a> and Aleksandra Krunic<\/a> for a place in the final, after they created an upset of their own \u2013 defeating the top seeds Katerina Siniakova and Taylor Townsend 6-2 3-6 6-0.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re a really good, tricky team. They work so well together, they\u2019ve both improved so much over the last few years as well, in particular, in doubles,\u201d Dabrowski said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe expect a great battle and a great level, and hopefully we can bring our best.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With a second consecutive Australian Open mixed doubles title on the horizon, the records are growing by the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":438649,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-438648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=438648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438648\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/438649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}