New York, Sept 12: Lisa Raymond surpassed Billie Jean King as the oldest Grand Slam women's doubles champion Sunday, teaming with Liezel Huber for a 4-6, 7-6 (5), 7-6 (3) victory over defending champions Vania King and Yaroslava Shedova in the U.S. Open final.
The 38-year-old Raymond won her third U.S. Open doubles championship, the last coming in 2005, when she teamed with Sam Stosur, who defeated Serena Williams for the singles title later Sunday.
Billie Jean King was 36 when she won her 16th women's Grand Slam doubles title in 1980 at the U.S. Open.
Raymond and Huber saved match point trailing 5-4 in the second set, then got to the third-set tiebreaker. Not surprisingly, Raymond was crediting experience for the comeback.
“They were the defending champs and they have two Grand Slams and they've done well, but we have years and years and years of being in finals of Slams, winning the championships, being down breaks in the third set to win or lose a slam,” Raymond said. “We relied on our experience and sticking together.”
After winning a point in the third-set tiebreaker to go ahead 6-2, Huber started celebrating, thinking they had won.
Two points later, they actually did, and Huber, who teamed with Nadia Petrova last year, avenged a loss to the King-Shedova team in the 2010 final.
The win will propel Huber back to No. 1 in the doubles rankings, a place she's held for 147 weeks, but not since October 2010. AP
