Babos and Mladenovic repeat as champions in Paris

PARIS, France - No.2 seeds Timea Babos and Kristina Mladenovic captured their second straight French Open title with a 6-4, 7-5 victory over No.14 seeds Alexa Guarachi and Desirae Krawczyk in Paris on Sunday.

Bidding for a fourth major together and a second in 2020 after winning the Australian Open in January, Babos and Mladenovic sealed victory in one hour and 33 minutes against the first-time Grand Slam finalists, breaking serve six times overall. 

The No.2 seeds were pushed all the way by the Cinderella story of the doubles event, as the American and Chilean bid for a third victory over a higher-seeded team in their tournament campaign after having beaten top seeds Hsieh Su-wei and Barbora Strycova, and No.7 seeds Shuko Aoyama and Ena Shibahara.

Needing five set points to capture the opening set, Babos and Mladenovic were also up a break three separate times in the second set before ultimately closing it out after breaking a fourth time. 

Babos and Mladenovic are the first doubles team to win two majors in the same season since Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova captured the French Open and Wimbledon back-to-back in 2018, and the first team to win in Melbourne and Paris specifically in the same year since Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Lucie Safarova did so in both 2015 and 2017.

"I'm really, really happy after US Open to take the title here. It's somehow very, very special. I always say it's special, but this, it's different. It's like a weird feeling. It's even hard to describe," Babos said after the match.

"It's definitely a relief. I'm always honest. I think this was the worst match we played in a very long time. I think we need again a little bit of time to really understand what happened... So voila! It's a good way to finish."

With the win, Babos and Mladenovic finished the Grand Slam season without an official loss: after a first-round victory at the US Open, the pair were withdrawn from the tournament in line with the event's COVID-19 protocols after Mladenovic had been contact traced to her compatriot Benoit Paire, who had tested positive. 

"To win it at the end, it just shows how much we were struggling for the last couple weeks, let's say," Babos added. "We had very, very rough September, especially Kiki, but obviously it affected me. I mean, I care for her and our friendship, not only the tennis.

"Then we were coming here obviously always with high expectations, but at the end with a little bit lower ones, because we really didn't know how we can manage."

The victory ties Mladenovic with Gail Chanfreau for the second-most Roland Garros doubles titles by a French player, man or woman, in the Open Era behind four for Francoise Durr. In addition, three French Open doubles titles also ranks the 27-year-old in a tie with Chanfreau and Jana Novotna.

"I rarely saw myself being that exhausted mentally and physically, especially on the Grand Slam final today, and [Babos] played a big part of our win today. I gave it everything the last two weeks during the rest of our matches," Mladenovic said.

"Especially when you're French and when you love as much as me competing in Roland Garros, and when this thing happened to you, like, two weeks before Roland Garros, I cannot tell you how bad my preparation was, even though we tried everything to be ready for [this tournament].

"But my body was not following. Of course, mentally it was tough. I had also a tough outcome in my first-round singles. I was on the edge. I wanted to be great on-court for my partner, because we deserved it after what happened to us in US Open. We couldn't compete.

"To lift the trophy here, like Timi said, it's always special, but this time you cannot imagine like what relief and what pride it is to actually, even for me personally, to leave this tournament with such a reward. I still have to wake up and believe it's actually true."