PARIS (AP) — Katerina Siniakova and Tomas Machac, who until recently were a couple, won the 2024 Olympics mixed doubles tennis gold medal for the Czech Republic by defeating Zhang Zhizhen and Wang Xinyu 6-2, 5-7, 10-8 in a match tiebreaker Friday night.
Siniakova and Machac hugged when the match ended, the way any two doubles teammates might after a victory.
Siniakova now owns the only two Summer Games tennis titles for her country. She teamed with Barbora Krejcikova to win the women’s doubles gold at the Tokyo Games three years ago.
Siniakova is a doubles specialist who has won a total of nine Grand Slam trophies. The first seven came alongside Krejcikova. Since they stopped playing together, Siniakova teamed with Coco Gauff to win the French Open title this June — at Roland Garros, the same site being used for tennis during these Olympics — and with Taylor Townsend to win Wimbledon in July.
Machac’s two best results in men’s doubles at Slam events came with Zhang as his partner this year. They reached the Australian Open semifinals in January, then the quarterfinals at the French Open.
Zhang and Wang leave Paris with a silver medal.
Another player from China, Zheng Qinwen, will play in the women’s singles gold medal match on Saturday against Donna Vekic of Croatia.
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AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games
