Last year, Elise Mertens won the doubles in Melbourne alongside Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka, now she is trying to do it again with Veronika Koedermetova next to her.
In the 2nd round, the Belgian-Russian tandem had to deal with a tough lump, with the experienced French duo Garcia-Mladenovic. Kristina Mladenovic has already won the Australian Open in doubles twice, in 2018 and 2020.
Both duos divided the first two sets, but in the decisive 3rd set Mertens and Koedermetova took the lead. On the serve of the two Frenchmen, the first match point was immediately the right one.
In the 1/8th finals, Mertens and Koedermetova face Yi-Fan Xu and Zhaoxuan Yang. The Chinese duo is the 14th seed in the doubles.
