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Venus and Serena Williams have had a lifetime to build on the close sisterly bond that has earned them 21 titles, including 13 Grand Slams, as a doubles pairing.
Timea Babos and Yaroslava Shvedova, by contrast, have developed a close friendship and successful partnership within the space of a few months.
This synergy showed in the most formidable way as each team advanced to the Wimbledon ladies’ doubles final. Babos and Shvedova defeated Raquel Atawo and Abigail Spears 6-4, 6-2, in an hour and 12 minutes, while Venus and Serena advanced with a 7-6(3), 6-4 win over Julia Goerges and Karolina Pliskova that took 25 minutes longer.
Babos and Shvedova have clicked in the most impressive way, their path to a first Grand Slam final together including a quarter-final win over No.1 seeds and defending champions Martina Hingis and Sania Mirza. The Hungarian and Kazakhstani duo, the No.5 seeds, won Tashkent together in 2013 and have competed consistently well since reuniting in March.
“We were planning to play the whole European (season) and now we want to stay together, hopefully until the end of the year because we’re in the race for the (WTA) Championships and also we have a good connection,” said Shvedova. “A great connection,” Babos added. “We have a lot of fun.”
Certainly there was a lot fun in the pair’s emphatic win over the American duo. The only glitch came early, as Babos and Shvedova each dropped serve in their first two service games. It was a temporary worry, the pair’s recovery from 3-1 down beginning with a love service hold from Babos, before the victors won nine successive games and were barely troubled in the second set.
“We started a little bit slow and maybe we didn’t have the right energy but this is what makes us a strong team,” said Babos. “We can really put in together and we started playing better and then the result was coming also.”
Registering just two unforced errors for the entire match, Babos and Shvedova impressed in every department as they showcased natural power, quick reflexes, acute angles on their grounds strokes and an easy ability to communicate.
“We were talking about this,” said Babos. “We had a moment that we didn’t speak at the changeover. We were talking about it after the match and we were, like, ‘what, why didn’t we speak?’ and we realised we were thinking the same thing, while we didn’t speak.”
Confidence is the other factor that has developed naturally for the pair, which showed as they easily outclassed Hingis and Mirza in their previous round. Shvedova, who also achieved a personal best singles performance by reaching the quarter-finals and was beaten on Friday evening, alongside Aisam Qureshi in the mixed doubles semi-finals, said that it’s important to treat each match as a fresh start.
“Everyone is playing well,” she pointed out. “We treat the teams the same, no matter what their ranking.”
Such an attitude is likely to be important against the formidable Williams sisters. Unseeded at The Championships, Venus and Serena outclassed No.4 seeds Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina in the quarter-final, before a test against No.8 seeds Goerges and Pliskova.
Sixteen years since the sisters combined to win the first of five doubles titles here, they appear as dominant as ever. While errors came more often from the racket of Venus, who was also responsible for all three of the pair’s service breaks, their semi-final also provided many instances of stunning shot-making under pressure, as well as their trademark power applied at just the right moments.
The sisters held a set point as Goerges served in the 10th game of the first set, which they subsequently closed out in the tie-break. The second set required a comeback from 4-1 down after Venus was broken in the fourth game. However, with breaks on both Pliskova’s and Goerges’ serves, the sisters won five consecutive games to settle the match.
Serena, who sealed victory with an ace, says that competing with Venus provides a pleasing balance to her high pressure singles career. “When we play doubles, we have fun,” she said. “We go out there. We try to win all our matches - the few that we play.”
Venus added: “It could be that we're together even better. Maybe that's the secret to all of our success in doubles. We never played a ton, but we had a lot of success. Both of us together, fighting and playing well, is definitely a good thing.”
