Chan, Dodig defend mixed crown

Latisha Chan and Ivan Dodig have carved out a slice of history with the defence of their Roland-Garros mixed doubles title on Friday, in a repeat of their victory over Gabriela Dabrowski and Mate Pavic from last year.

It marked the first time a pairing had defend a mixed doubles title in Paris in the Open Era, with the 6-1, 7-6(5) result over the No.2 seeds coming in 79 minutes.

The Chinese Taipei-Croatian pair took down the top two seeds in succession to land their hands on the trophy on Court Simone-Matthieu.

Dabrowski and Pavic had won last year’s Australian Open mixed doubles together and despite opening up a 4-1 lead in the second set, they were unable to carry their momentum to clinch the set and force a deciding match tie-break.

Twice Chan and Dodig grabbed mini-breaks in the second-set tie-break and although the Croatian missed a championship point on a misfired forehand, he made up for it a point later, thumping a short forehand winner down the middle to secure back-to-back titles for the pair.

“I’d like to thank all of you for coming out in this weather,” Chan said. “It wasn’t easy for us and I believe it’d be even harder to watch so thanks for staying with us.

“It was a rematch from last year, so congratulations to Mate and Gabby. I believe there’ll be much more rematches again."

Dodig has triumphed three times at Roland-Garros, having clinched a men’s doubles title in 2015 with Marcelo Melo to complement his mixed doubles titles.

In addition to Chan’s two Roland-Garros mixed doubles titles, she won the 2017 US Open women’s doubles with Martina Hingis.

“I’d like to thank my partner Ivan,” Chan said. “He has been the best partner for me. We’ve progressed so well on court and off court.”