Vera Zvonareva and Laura Siegemund stood clumsily confronting one another, rackets and arms noticeable all around in disarray.
At last, Siegemund went to the chair umpire for a decision.
“Are we allowed to give a hug?” she asked.
The standards of tennis during the Covid pandemic were the only thing Zvonareva and Siegemund couldn’t make sense of in their first competition together.
The couple won the US Open women’s doubles title Friday, beating the third-seeded team of Yi-Fan Xu and Nicole Melichar 6-4, 6-4 on Friday.
Zvonareva and Siegemund gathered $400,000 – and furthermore their embrace – by racing to brisk leads in the two sets and hanging on when their adversaries started to play better.
Zvonareva, a Russian who turned 36 this week, added this title to the 2006 US Open trophy she won with Nathalie Dechy. She additionally was the runner-up in singles at Flushing Meadows in 2010, falling to Kim Clijsters, and rose to a career-high singles ranking of No. 2 the following month.
She additionally won the 2012 Australian Open doubles title yet later fought wounds and started playing less, particularly subsequent to giving birth to daughter Evelina in 2016.
“It wasn’t easy,” Zvonareva said. “I had a lot of injuries in the past and always trying to come back, and it’s a big privilege for me to be here today.”
Zvonareva and Siegemund, who have each won the US Open mixed doubles title, raced to a 5-1 lead in the first set and a 3-1 beginning in the second. Siegemund, who was sharp early, honored an auntie she said died while she was in New York
“I think she had the best seat in the house, so I just want to dedicate it to her,” the German said.
Xu and Melichar completed second for the second consecutive competition in New York. They were runners-up at the Western and Southern Open that is typically played in Ohio.
