They lost in the decisive set 0:5 and 0:40 and still went to the second serve, but the Czech tennis players Markéta Vondroušová and Miriam Kolodziejová celebrated in the doubles of the Australian Open after a miraculous turn to advance to the top sixteen pairs.
The Czechs turned away nine match points against the Brazilian-Chinese duo Beatriz Haddad Maia and Zhang Shuai. In the end, they won 3:6, 7:6 (11:9), 7:6 (14:12).
“The match was up and down, but when it was 0:5 and 0:40, probably no one thought we could turn it around,” Vondroušová told the Tennis World server.
In addition, her partner went for the second serve. “We wanted to make at least one game,” revealed Vondroušová.
But in the end it was much more. “Then it happened that we suddenly started winning points,” wondered the more experienced of the Czech pair.
“So they spoiled some returns that they probably didn’t have to spoil. They were much luckier than us all the time and towards the end of the match things turned around a bit,” praised Vondroušová.
The Czechs faced three match points already in the tie-break of the second set, but they turned them all away and won it themselves. The other six opportunities to end the match were wasted by the opponents in the deciding set. Vondroušová and Kolodziejová used their third match point.
The next opponents of the Czech tandem will be Marta Kosťuková from Ukraine and Elena-Gabriela Ruseová from Romania.
