ALL hail the mixed doubles king. Jamie Murray picked up his fourth mixed doubles Grand Slam title last night – and sixth Grand Slam title in all – as he successfully defended his US Open title.
Murray and his American partner Bethanie Mattek-Sands edged out Alicja Rosolska of Poland and Nikola Mektic of Croatia 2-6, 6-3, 11-9 to complete a superb two weeks.
Virginia Wade, with seven – three singles and four doubles – is the only Briton to win more Grand Slam titles in the Open era than Murray.
“Finding good partners – I’ve got a good talent for that, I guess,” said Murray, when asked the secret to his success in mixed doubles. “We’ve had an amazing two weeks. Today things were going against us but we fought really hard to get back into the match.”
For Mattek-Sands, it was her eighth Grand Slam title but her first since she suffered a career-threatening knee injury at Wimbledon last year, and the emotions came out as she discussed how far she has come in a year.
“I got a little emotional out there,” the 33-year-old said. “I’ve had an amazing team supporting me out there, going from not being able to get myself out of bed last year to playing these finals.
“I mean, really, I don’t care what anyone tells you. If you’re too old or you’re too young, you’re too big or you’re too small, you haven’t had enough opportunities or you’re still waiting for yours, you can do anything when you put your mind to it. Go out there and choose your attitude, choose happiness every day, no matter what, and big things will happen.”
Murray has now won his four Grand Slam mixed doubles titles, with three different partners; Mattek-Sands, Jelena Jankovic and Martina Hingis, who won Wimbledon and the US Open together last year.
Hingis was sat in Murray’s team box to support the Scot, who missed out on another Wimbledon title when he and Victoria Azarenka lost in the final at the All England Club this summer.
When Mattek-Sands was broken twice in the first set, Murray and Mattek-Sands were up against it but one break of the Rosolska serve gave them the second set to force a deciding match tie-break, Murray wrapping it up with a lunging volley.
Murray and Mattek-Sands trailed 4-1 but won six straight points to lead 7-4 before Rosolska and Mektic hit back. Still Murray and Mattek-Sands led 9-6, with three match points but after their opponents saved the first two, Murray missed a half-volley to make it 9-9.
But they gathered themselves together quickly to force a fourth match point as Mektic framed a return long and after a big return on the baseline from Mattek-Sands, Murray slammed away a high forehand volley to clinch victory.
Mattek-Sands, dressed in her trademark long socks, had suggested that Murray wear something similar in the final but the Scot declined.
However, Murray did offer up something special to his mum, Judy, who was sitting in the team box throughout.
“A quick happy birthday to my mum, it’s her 75th birthday,” he said, to much laughter [she is 59]. Only kidding.”
Murray then proceeded to sing “Happy Birthday” to Judy, while Mattek-Sands praised his influence on her throughout the two weeks.
“Jamie is very calm and poised out there and I’m very energetic,” she said. “We match, it was an amazing couple of weeks, it was awesome.”
And Murray said he was impressed by the effort Mattek-Sands had made to even get back to playing tennis, let alone winning another Grand Slam title.
“I watched Beth and Justin [her husband] quite a lot [at the US Open] last year when I was going to play mixed doubles, some of the doubles matches,” he said.
“They were in the gym together. I mean, you were barely able to do anything, weren’t you? I imagine Justin was so patient with the whole process because it’s such a difficult thing to go through, I imagine. To be here a year later is a pretty incredible effort, I think.”
Nothing is written in stone but don’t be surprised if we see Murray and Mattek-Sands partnering up again come January and the Australian Open.
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