Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Lucie Safarova claim the Australian Open women’s doubles crown with a straight-sets Win

Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Czech Lucie Safarova have claimed the Australian Open 2015 women’s doubles crown in their first tournament together, after an entertaining and hard-fought victory over 14th seeds Yung-Jan Chan (Chinese Taipei) and Jie Zheng (China) 6-4 7-6(5) at Rod Laver Arena on Friday. 

 The match was close throughout, but it was Mattek-Sands and Safarova who were able to take advantage of the opportunities when they were presented. 
 The unseeded duo saved their best tennis for the key moments, coming back from a break down early in the first set and again in the second – after Mattek-Sands required treatment on her leg – to push their more experienced opponents to a tiebreaker. 
 They once again found themselves up against it but – with the match potentially looking to go to a decider – they managed to dig deep and take it out in straight sets. Coming back from injury, the win marks the second Australian Open title for Mattek-Sands after she won the mixed doubles title in 2012 with Romanian Horia Tecau. 
It is Safarova’s first Grand Slam title. “I think a big part of it is me and Lucie are really good friends,” Mattek-Sands said. “Communication's huge. Whether we were down in a match, up in a match, we were having fun. I think that helps teams really play well. 

 “It literally was one tournament initially,” Mattek-Sands continued. “Obviously we'll be playing some more.” “It's just so special,” said Safarova.
 “It's hard to describe the feelings. It's like such a huge happiness, because to be a Grand Slam champion, it's just the best you can have.”
 “Our name is carved on this trophy,” added Mattek-Sands. “It's pretty cool. It's got a lot of great names on there. We get to add ours now.”