AFP

Melbourne, Jan 30: Serena and Venus Williams won their eighth career Grand Slam women's doubles title when they beat Ai Sugiyama and Daniela Hantuchova 6-3, 6-3 in the final of the Australian Open on Friday.

The sisters claimed their third Australian Open doubles trophy when they overpowered their opponents in just 75 minutes.

The Williams, who also won the Australian Open doubles in 2001 and 2003, kept intact their record of never having lost a doubles final at a Grand Slam.

They are now tied with Virginia Ruano Pascual and Paola Suarez as the third most successful Grand Slam women's doubles partnership in the Open era, behind Martina Navratilova/Pam Shriver with 21 and Gigi Fernandez/Natasha Zvereva (14).

They were too powerful in every department for Japan's Sugiyama and Slovakia's Hantuchova, who were on the backfoot from the moment Sugiyama lost second her service game.

The Japanese player was under enormous pressure throughout the match and failed to hold her serve at all in the second set.

The two teams traded early service breaks in the first set, from Venus and Hantuchova, and then games went on serve until 4-3 when Sugiyama was broken for the first time.

Venus served out the next game to wrap up the first set and put the sisters firmly in control.

There was a run of five consecutive service breaks at the start of the second set but the Williams sisters always looked more dangerous.

At 4-3 down Sugiyama was broken again and this time Serena served out the set to love to claim the title.