American Christina McHale and China’s Xinyun Han have combined to win the 2016 Hobart International doubles title.
They defeated Australian duo Kimberly Birrell and Jarmila Wolfe 6-3 6-0 in this afternoon’s final.
“It was definitely a closer match than the score shows,” McHale said. “There was a lot of deuce points, but it was good because I think we stayed aggressive on those points and we’re just really excited to get the win this week.”
It was the first WTA Tour title, in either singles or doubles, for both players.
“I’ve been on the tour for a few years now so it’s just really nice to finally win my first WTA Tour title,” McHale said.
Wolfe agreed the scoreline did not reflect the match, lamently what could have been if they had of won more of the deciding deuce points they played.
“I think it was a great week, we maybe lost the final but even in the final we still tried our best, it was just unfortunately one of those days,” Wolfe said.
“Out of 15 games we ended up losing 10 deuce points, so we lost by nine points literally. It just wasn’t meant to be today. We tried and fought hard to the end.”
Birrell, playing in just her second WTA Tour doubles draw, also took positives from the match.
“It’s still been such an amazing week for me,” Birrell said. “I’ve had so many new experiences and I’m definitely going to take this in my stride and take all the confidence I’ve got from this week.”
> View a photo gallery from the final