Northerner Kristina Mladenovic and Lyonnaise Caroline Garcia, who reformed their pair at the start of the year, qualified this Friday for the final of the doubles tournament at Roland-Garros. They overthrew the pair of Latvian Jelena Ostapenko associated with Ukrainian Lyudmyla Kichenok, 2-6, 6-4, 6-2 after more than two hours of interruption due to rain. The French will face the Americans Jessica Pegula and Coco Gauff on Sundayalso a finalist in the singles tournament.
Mladenovic aims for a 5th Grand Slam title
“We haven’t had a lot of playing time in doubles either together or separately for a long time, that was the big challenge”, described Kristina Mladenovic about their entry into the tournament. What was positive was immediately our communication, the cohesion.”
They return to the final of the Parisian Grand Slam for the first time since 2016, the year of their title. The two French players, who had not played doubles together on the WTA circuit since 2017, reformed their victorious pair of the 2019 Fed Cup at the start of the year. Without Caroline Garcia, Kristina Mladenovic won four Grand Slam doubles titlesincluding two at Roland-Garros (2019 and 2020), teaming up with the Hungarian Timea Babos.