The duo of Latvia and Ukraine, seeded seventh in the tournament, defeated Kristina Mladenovič of France and Zhang Shuai of China in the final match 6-4, 6-3.
Ostapenko started the match with a serve, the Latvian/Ukrainian pair winning the first three games.
Serving for Kichenoka, the opponents won the seventh game “dry”, but in the eighth they achieved a draw – 4-4.
In the longest ninth game of the match, when Ostapenko was serving, the opponents were unable to use five break points, Kichenoka won the point in the 22-hand game with a game at the net – 5-4.
When Džana was serving, the Latvian/Ostapenko duo had a set point, but it was played back. In the game of the second set point, Dzhan made a double fault – 6-4 in favor of Ostapenko and Kichenok.
Ostapenko also started the second set with a serve. Winning just one game, Mladenovic’s header made it 1-0 in favor of the French/Chinese pair.
In the sixth game, when Dzhana was serving, Ostapenko equalized the result with Kichenok – 3-3 after the Chinese hit out.
In the eighth game, when Džana hit the field, the future champions gained a 5-3 advantage, and in the next game they won with the fourth match point, when Mladenovića hit the ball in the net.
The winners made more double faults (7:5), but Dzhan and Mladenovic hit the first serve more often on the court (72%:54%).
The winners scored more points both with the first serve (61%:56%) and the second serve (54%:47%).
The Latvian/Ukrainian pair realized four out of five break points, while the opponents managed to do so in two cases out of seven.
Throughout the match, Ostapenko and Kichenok won 69 out of 130 games.
Ostapenko earned 2,000 world doubles ranking points and $750,000 for winning the tournament.
The Latvian/Ukrainian pair beat the Americans Jessie Eini and Jessica Feil in the first round match 6-3, 6-3, in the second round they defeated Makoto Ninomiya from Japan and Jiang Xinyu from China, in the round of 16 with 6-3, 7- 6 (7:5) defeated the Brazilian Beatriz Hadad Maja and the German tennis player Laura Seegemund, who were seeded 12th in the tournament, in the quarterfinals with 7-6 (7:2), 6-4 overcame Kazakhstan’s Anna Danilina and Russian Irina Khromachova, but in the semi-finals, she defeated Chan Haochin from Taiwan and Veronika Kudermetova from Russia, who were seeded with the tenth number in the competition, 6-1, 6-2.
Unseeded Mladenovic/Zhan defeated the second-seeded international duo of Belgium’s Elise Mertens and Taiwan’s Suwei Xie 6-2, 6-3 in the first round, then beat Magda Linetti 6-2, 4-6, 6-3 (Poland) and Peyton Stearns from the USA, with 6-2, 6-4 – Russians Mirra Andreeva and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, with 7-6 (7:2), 6-4 – fifth seeded Nicole Melihar-Martinez from the USA and Australian Elena Peres, but in the fight for a place in the finals, she beat Czech Katerzyna Sinjakova and American Taylor Townsend 7-5, 4-6, 6-3.
The duo had never met before.
Ostapenko played in the US Open doubles final for the first time in her career. Her best result so far was the quarter-final reached in 2019.
In a duet with Kichenok, the Riga player reached the final of the “Grand Slam” doubles for the first time in her career this season, entering the decisive match of the “Australian Open”.
Mladenovic has won six times in the Grand Slam tournaments in women’s doubles, winning four times in the French Open and twice in Australia. At the US Open, she has reached the final three times, but has yet to win.
Together with Dzhan Mladenovic, New York was the first “Grand Slam” tournament final.
This was Zhang’s second US Open final. In 2021, together with the Australian Samantha Stosur, she celebrated the victory in New York. She also has the title of 2019 winner in Australia in women’s doubles.
It was previously reported that in the first round of the “US Open” singles tournament, Ostapenko lost 3-6, 2-6 to former world number one Naomi Osaka from Japan, but Daria Semenistaya did not overcome the first round of qualification.
The last “Grand Slam” tournament of the season will take place in New York until September 8.
2024-09-07 16:24:37