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Sunday Notebook New doubles pairs experience success
Updated: Thursday February 08, 2001 4:41 PM
MELBOURNE, Australia (CNNSI) -- Corina Morariu gave herself a late birthday present by teaming with Ellis Ferreira to beat Joshua Eagle and Barbara Schett 6-1, 6-3 Sunday and win the Australian Open mixed doubles championship. It was the second Grand Slam tournament trophy for each of the winners. Morariu and Lindsay Davenport won the women's doubles at Wimbledon in 1999. Ferreira and Rick Leach won the men's doubles last year at the Australian Open against Wayne Black and Andrew Kratzmann, and their 18-16 fifth set, which lasted two hours, was twice as long as Sunday's entire match. On Morariu's 23rd birthday Friday, she and Davenport let a 3-1 lead slip away in the final set and lost the women's doubles final to American compatriots Venus and Serena Williams. "I got a little belated birthday," Morariu said in accepting her mixed doubles trophy. "This makes up for Friday." Morariu said she had asked the 30-year-old South African shortly before the Open to be her mixed doubles partner, although "he doesn't have a very good reputation for putting in 100 percent effort in mixed. ... But he played great, obviously." Ferreira said the problem in the past was that in mixed, "I always felt that I had to do more. I would miss shots and get frustrated with myself." Morariu was such a good partner, he added, that he was able to play the same way he would in men's doubles.
New partner, same resultEven with a brand-new partner, Todd Woodbridge is tough to beat when it comes to Grand Slam doubles. Woodbridge, who formed a formidable tandem with Mark Woodforde for years, teamed with Jonas Bjorkman to win the doubles title at the Australian Open on Saturday, beating Byron Black and David Prinosil 6-1, 5-7, 6-4, 6-4. Woodbridge and Woodforde -- known as "The Woodies" - won 11 major doubles titles together, one short of the record. They played in 15 major finals. "It's a lot different for me because it's the first Slam since the 1980s that I've played with a different partner," Woodbridge said. Sweden's Bjorkman is a doubles star in his own right, having captured three of the last Australian Open crowns -- each with a different partner. He teamed with Jacco Eltingh in 1998 to beat Australians Woodbridge and Woodforde in the final, and played with Pat Rafter in 1999. For Bjorkman, it was a third Australian Open doubles crown in the last four years, all with different partners. "Thanks, Jonas," Woodbridge said. "I guess you had some pretty big shoes to fill and you seemed to have filled them very quickly." Black, playing his 37th consecutive Grand Slam doubles tournament, was teaming with Prinosil for the first time. Black's record in major tournament finals dropped to 1-3. Woodbridge and Bjorkman split $196,900. Black and Prinosil share $98,450.
Single purposeMartina Hingis recently split with doubles partner Anna Kournikova. Now Hingis might quit doubles altogether. Hingis said it takes her longer to recover these days, and she may have to reconsider playing doubles because the match play is too arduous at a Grand Slam. "When you're a kid, you have so much energy -- when you're 16, 17," said the 20-year-old Swiss. "When you're a child, so many things come a lot easier to you. But, you know, you have more experience the older you are. I can build on that." The top-ranked Hingis, who lost to 24-year-old Capriati in the Australian Open final on Saturday, has won five Grand Slam singles titles: the Australian Open from 1997-99, and Wimbledon and the U.S. Open in 1997.
Steeling a victoryStefano Capriati says he's always known his daughter Jennifer had what it takes to win a major tournament. "I know the steel of my daughter," Stefano said after Jennifer's 6-4, 6-3 victory over No. 1 Martina Hingis in Saturday's Australian Open final. "[When] she won the Olympics, she had the will, the desire. She lost it for a while, but I know it's in her and I hope it lasts a long time. "I'm very proud, I'm proud of her all the time, but especially now." She made the Wimbledon semifinals as a 14-year-old in 1991, and won the Olympic gold medal at Barcelona in 1992. But Capriati dropped off the tour for more than two years due to drug and personal problems. Saturday's match was Capriati's first Grand Slam event final. Can she win another major title? "It's a question of the time," Stefano said. "If she keeps working the way she's working -- Yes."
The Associated Press contributed to this report. |
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