For the first time in history, Czechia has captured the gold medal in mixed doubles at the Olympics.
Katerina Siniakova and Tomas Machac took home the mixed Olympic title on Friday, after the pair defeated Xinyu Wang and Zhizhen Zheng of China in the mixed doubles final, 6-2, 5-7, 10-8.
Siniakova entered the Olympic tennis tournament after capturing the women's doubles title at Wimbledon last month with American Taylor Townsend. Siniakova's gold medal joins her robust trophy collection, which includes nine women's doubles Grand Slam titles, and the women's doubles gold medal from the 2020 Games. The 2024 Paris Games marks Siniakova's first appearance in the mixed doubles event at the Olympics, and this is only her and Machac's third appearance playing together.
Machac's best Grand Slam showing came alongside his opponent across the court, Zheng. The pair reached the semifinals at both the Australian and French Open earlier this year. Zheng's partner, Wang, made her mixed doubles debut for the first time ever at the Paris Games.
The Czechs wasted no time in the first set, and managed to convert two breaks to help them take Set 1 in a quick 23 minutes.
Wang and Zheng wouldn't go down that easy, and at 5-all in the second, broke Machac's serve to tip the scales in their favor. In the final game, the Chinese blasted a backhand winner to take the set from the Czechs.
With sets split, the teams were forced into a super tie-break third set. After continually tying the score, the Chinese team lost a critical point at 8-all with a double fault. At match point, Machac's serve was met by a return from Wang, who hit the ball into the net, delivering the gold medal to Czechia.
The Canadian team of Felix Auger-Aliassime and Gabriela Dabrowski bested Demi Schuurs and Wesley Koolhof of the Netherlands, 6-3, 7-6(2), to take home the bronze medal. The Canucks served the Dutch three aces in their 1 hour and 33 minute medal match.
MATCH STATS l MIXED DOUBLES BRACKET
| Country | Team members | |
|---|---|---|
| 🥇 | Czechia | Katerina Siniakova and Tomas Machac |
| 🥈 | China | Xinyu Wang and Zhizhen Zheng |
| 🥉 | Canada | Felix Auger-Aliassime and Gabriela Dabrowski |