Mattek-Sands, Safarova, Auger Aliassime also triumph on final day of U.S. Open

Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Lucie Safarova won the women’s doubles title on the last day of action at the 2016 U.S.Open, defeating Kristina Mladenovic and Caroline Garcia-6 7-6(5) 6-4. The American-Czech pairing survived a two-hour and seven-minute thriller to capture their third career major as a team.

No. 3 one almost didn’t happen. The French duo dominated the opening set and even served for the championship at 5-4 in the second, but Mladenovic and Garcia could not get across the finish line. Mattek-Sands and Safarova got back on serve at 5-5, eventually forced a tiebreaker, never trailed in it, and broke right away in the third set before consolidating it the entire way to clinch victory.
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“It was a little bit of a slow start, but I’ve gotta give credit to our opponents,” Mattek-Sands commented. “They came out playing big, serving big, making all their rolls, (and) ripping returns. I think one of the things that we do really well is we don’t get too down no matter what the score is. We’re really positive…. It happens sometimes; you play a team that’s playing good or you might not be making all the shots, but any match can turn around in a couple of points. That’s just a matter of sticking to it.”

“It’s amazing,” Safarova said of winning three Grand Slam titles with Mattek-Sands. “I think the chemistry is great. We complement each other so well. Our games just fit.”

In addition to the women’s doubles final and the men’s singles title match (Stan Wawrinka beat Novak Djokovic in four sets), Sunday’s schedule also featured the conclusion of the junior events. Mattek-Sands was not the lone American to triumph on September 11, as Kayla Day beat Slovakia’s Viktoria Kuzmova 6-3, 6-2 in the girls singles championship showdown.

“It means so much,” Day explained. “It’s really great. I knew that coming into the match an American or somebody from outside of Europe hadn’t won–a girl hadn’t won a junior slam in like four years, so it means so much to me to be able to play for America and win.”

Both junior singles trophies will be staying in North America, as highly-touted Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime crushed Serbia’s Miomir Kecmanovic 6-3, 6-0 in the boys final for the first major title of his career. It was especially sweet for Auger-Aliassime because he had lost a brutal French Open title match 1-6, 6-3, 8-6 to Geoffrey Blancaneaux after missing three match points.

“It’s obviously really great,” Auger-Aliassime commented. “I’m not gonna lie; I had some nightmares about this heartbreaking final. You don’t really want it to happen again. So I was really focused on going into this match. I really wanted that win. Yeah, it’s a great feeling.”

He was dominant, too. The 16-year-old needed just 58 minutes–and a grand total of 18 in the second set–to get the job done.
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“I think it was one of the best performances I have had,” Auger-Aliassime assessed. “In the final you never know what can happen. You don’t always play your best level because you’re a bit nervous and there is something big to go get. But I just stayed really steady…. In the second set I think I was really going through him and putting a lot of pressure on him.”

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