Babos and Mladenovic cruise to US Open women's doubles final

World
Europe

Zhang Shuai's amazing run at the US Open was put to the test as the Chinese player and her Australian partner Samantha Stosur were eliminated by Hungary's Timea Babos and France's Kristina Mladenovic 6-4, 7-6 in the semifinals.

The French and Hungarian duo started strong as a return winner. Babos gave them a break to start, but Zhang's volley got her and Stosur back on serve. Tied at 4-4, Stosur clipped the net and then sent a forehand way to concede a break. On set point, Zhang returned wide. Babos and Mladenovic took it 6-4.

Samantha Stosur of Australia (R) and Zhang Shuai (L) of China in action during their women's doubles semi-final match against Timea Babos of Hungary and Kristina Mladenovic of France at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center on September 6, 2018./VCG Photo

Trailing 5-4 in the second, Zhang and Stosur had a break point to get back on serve. And a quick volley from the Aussie forced a tiebreaker. But when Zhang was unable to control Babos' serve, the Chinese and her partner fell behind 5-1.

On match point, Zhang just managed to catch the line with a backhand to hang on a bit longer. But a great serve from Mladenovic ended it 7-4 and they would face CoCo Vandeweghe of the US and Ashleigh Barty of Australia in the final.

"Well I think we can take a lot of positives from the whole week. This is probably the best week we have played together and we had many times on court," Stosur said.

"But this week we were a lot more aggressive and we worked on a few things which was really good even the result today didn't go our way," she added.

Although they didn't make it into the final, it was the best result for Zhang in a Grand Slam. "I think we have achieved a lot from this match, and we are more confident now to be able to play better together," Zhang said.

"Today, our opponents are very strong. They won the title in Australian Open, and their rankings are pretty high. We played some good chances and I think they are quite good signs," she added.