Ukraine’s Kichenok loses Grand Slam Doubles Final to No. 2 seed
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Ukrainian tennis player Lyudmyla Kichenok and Latvian Jelena Ostapenko lost their Australian Open doubles final to the second seeds with a 1-6 5-7 score.
The winners – Taiwan's Hsieh Su-Wei and Belgium's Elise Mertens – achieved their second Grand Slam doubles victory after the 2021 Wimbledon.
Su-Wei, who turned 38 this month, has become Grand Slam's second oldest woman to claim a doubles title, after Lisa Raymond, who was eight days older when she won the 2011 US Open.
And for the first time in 16 years, a Ukrainian tennis player reached the Grand Slam women's doubles championship match.
The 31-year-old Dnipro-born tennis player, currently ranked No. 27 in the world doubles, played her first Australian Open final during her tennis career.
In 2023, Kichenok won the mixed doubles title with Croatia's Mate Pavic at Wimbledon. She is the third Ukrainian female tennis player to reach the Grand Slam doubles final.
Her 26-year-old Latvian doubles partner Ostapenko, with a career-high ranking of No. 5 in the world, won a Roland Garros 2017 champion in singles.
Ukrainian tennis players set several national records during the Australian Open, with 23-year-old qualifier Dayana Yastremska making her way to her debut Grand Slam semi-final – becoming the first Ukrainian woman ever to reach the Australian Open singles semifinals and the first player to go through qualifiers to reach such a result.
Yastremska lost the semi-final 6-4 6-4 to China's Zheng Qinwen, who then lost to Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka playing as a "neutral" player. Ukrainian Marta Kostyuk lost to America's 19-year-old rising star Coco Gauff with two tie breaks in the quarterfinals.
