Two of the WTA's rising stars Mirra Andreeva and Diana Shnaider have captured their maiden tour doubles title at the Brisbane International in a narrow 7-6(6) 7-5 triumph over Australian Priscilla Hon and Anna Kalinskaya.
In an all-unseeded final, Andreeva/Shnaider served for the opening set and were forced to save a set point in the subsequent tiebreak before they sealed the advantage 8-6 on their third opportunity.
In the second set, the Paris Olympic doubles silver medallists pulled back a 1-4 deficit and reeled off six of the last seven games to seal the result after an hour and 50 minutes.
"Great tournament, it's a nice place to start the year, the season, so I'm glad that me and Mirra start with this trophy, and I hope we'll keep going like this," Shnaider said. "I want to congratulate the girls because they [beat] very good doubles teams, some seeds, so good job to them.
"Thanks Mirra for playing with me. I hope we will keep going like that, having more tournaments, more trophies together with our future long careers."
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In their first tournament together in tandem, wildcards Hon and Kalinskaya had upset the No.1 seeds Chan Hao-ching and Lyudmyla Kichenok en route to the final.
It was a late decision to team up that almost ended with the title.
"It was such a last-minute thing, and I didn't think we'd be here but here we are and, you know, I've never this much fun on court with someone," Hon said. "We couldn't stop laughing, which sometimes seems a bit rude, but we're having a great time out here ... Obviously, I train here so it's been really nice having family and friends here."
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