As the season winds down, Doubles Take looks at the action at the last few events on the WTA and ATP tours.
VIVA LA FRANCE
In the semifinals of this year’s edition of the Fed Cup, both France and Australia had to rely on the doubles outcome to advance against their respective opponents, Romania and Belarus, with both nations eking out three-set victories.
It only made sense then that the final of the international women’s team competition would go down to the wire, too.
On the first day of the competition, France’s Kristina Mladenovic routed Ajla Tomljanovic of Australia 6-1, 6-1, to stake the visiting team to a 1-0 lead. World No. 1 Ashleigh Barty went two steps further by dominating Caroline Garcia 6-0, 6-0 to level the contest. The Aussie couldn’t maintain that momentum, though, as Mladenovic pulled off the upset and beat her in a third-set tiebreak, before Tomljanovic topped Parmentier in straight sets, leaving it all up to the doubles to decide the outcome.
Garcia and Mladenovic, the 2016 French Open winners, faced Barty and former doubles world No. 1 Samantha Stosur. All four players on the court had won majors in doubles, but in the end, the French team had perhaps more familiarity with each other, which propelled the duo to a 6-4, 6-3 win.