Agencies

London, Jul 4: Leander Paes and Cara Black have won their second Grand Slam mixed doubles title for the year, adding the Wimbledon crown to the one they’d claimed at the Australian Open earlier this year.

The second seeds defeated the 11th seeded pairing of Wesley Moody and Lisa Raymond 6-4, 7-6(5) in the final at the All England Club to improve on their runner-up performance in the mixed doubles in SW19 last year.

Today’s victory marks the third mixed doubles title the pair have shared at the majors; the fifth Grand Slam mixed doubles title of her career for Black, who completed a career Grand Slam in the mixed at the 2010 Australian Open; and the third Wimbledon mixed doubles title of Paes’ career, after he won partnering Raymond in 1999 and a 46-year-old Martina Navratilova in 2003.

Paes and Black arrived in the final with the aim of improving on their 2009 result, but Moody and Raymond immediately set about ensuring that was going to be no easy task, breaking Paes’ in his first service game of the match, but the reply was swift as Raymond’s serve was broken the very next game.

By the end of the first four games, however, it was only the 6ft 5in tall Moodie, the only player who hadn’t won a Grand Slam mixed doubles title of the four finalists, who had held serve; by the end of the fifth none of the quartet remained unbroken.

The decisive break came in the seventh game of the set, when the second seeds again broke Raymond’s serve for a 4-3 lead and then held serve for the remainder of the set to take a 1-0 lead in the match.

After holding serve proved tougher than breaking it in the first set, the opposite was the case in the second as the first six games passed by without so much as a break point chance, but when the first of them arrived it was again against Raymond’s serve. The American-South African combination, however, saved all four break points with Raymond producing some strong first serves when she needed them most.

Two break point opportunities then presented themselves against Black’s serve as Paes’ volleying missed its mark, but both were saved as games remained on serve to a second set tiebreak, where it was the second seeded pair who claimed the championship.