MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) - Mate Pavic picked up two Grand Slam titles within 24 hours after winning the Australian Open mixed doubles on Sunday.
The afternoon after winning the men’s doubles, Pavic combined with Gabriela Dabrowski to beat Rohan Bopanna Timea Babos 2-6, 6-4, 11-9 under a closed roof at Rod Laver Arena.
He teamed with Austrian Oliver Marach to win the men’s doubles title late the previous night, after Caroline Wozniacki’s win in the women’s singles final against Simona Halep.
“I have to say I did not imagine that I’m able to do that,” he said of his double doubles success in Melbourne.
The 24-year-old collected more than 400,000 Australian dollars ($325,000) prize money for his two victories.
It was the second career major for Dabrowski, who became the first Canadian woman to win a Grand Slam title when she combined last year with Bopanna to win the French Open mixed doubles.
The Australian Open was her first tournament with Pavic, and they hadn’t dropped a set on the way to the final.
“A couple of weeks ago in Brisbane, I read an article where it said that Bopanna was playing with Babos and I hadn’t spoken to him yet about playing,” Dabrowski said. “I had a lot of other things going on, so I was kind of just procrastinating (about) the decision, I suppose, to find a partner for the mixed doubles.
“Then after I read that article, straightaway I messaged some people and Mate was one of those people and he responded almost immediately.”
Asked if she was surprised that her French Open-winning partner was playing with someone else at the Australian Open, Dabrowski replied: “Yeah, I mean, only because we hadn’t spoken about it. I wasn’t about to go find another partner without talking to him first. But this is the business and this is the industry that we are in, and you kind of just have to have a tough skin.”
Babos, who also won the Australian Open women’s doubles title on Friday, and Bopanna were seemingly in control of the final played indoors after officials ordered the retractable roof to be closed on Rod Laver Arena with Melbourne’s temperature near 40 Celsius (104 Fahrenheit).
But Pavic and Dabrowski rallied to seize the second set and then raced to a 6-3 lead in the deciding extended tiebreak.
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