Krejcikova-Siniakova to face Bencic-Golubic for women's doubles gold
Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova will face Belinda Bencic and Viktorija Golubic in the Tokyo 2020 women’s doubles gold medal match, ensuring that both Czech Republic and Switzerland have secured two Olympic tennis medals at these Games.
With Bencic reaching the women's singles final earlier on Thursday - where she will face unseeded Czech Marketa Vondrousova for gold or silver - both flags will feature twice during the weekend's trophy ceremonies at Ariake Tennis Park. ROC duo Elena Vesnina and Veronika Kudermetova will face Brazilians Laura Pigossi and Luisa Stefani in the bronze medal match on Saturday.
Krejcikova and Siniakova, the Olympic top seeds and reigning Australian and French Open champions, beat Vesnina – who won women's doubles gold at Rio 2016 – and Kudermetova 6-3 3-6 [10-6] to book their place in Sunday’s final.
"It feels amazing, and I’m really happy for us, because we’ve been playing together for a long time," Krejcikova said. "We’ve had many ups and downs, but we are still here and playing together. I think it’s something special.
"Everybody was expecting us to be in the finals, but we had such a tough draw. So now that we’ve got through, it’s perfect, a dream come true. We are in the finals of the Olympics, and we are representing our country - it’s something special, something very deep. I hope the people back home are going to be proud when we get one medal or the other."
For the third match in succession, the Czechs advanced after winning a match tiebreak after Vesnina and Kudermetova hit back after losing the opening set to draw level.
"This was the toughest one, yeah," Siniakova said of the trio of high-stakes deciders. "We knew the opponents, we lost to them at Wimbledon, so it was a really, really tough one, and I’m so glad we did it. This one is really special because it’s the Olympics, it’s only every four years."
Victory ensures Krejcikova and Siniakova either a gold or silver medal, with compatriot Marketa Vondrousova through to the women's singles gold medal match, where she will face Bencic, who now has guaranteed herself two medals in Tokyo.
Following on from her singles semi-final victory over Kazakhstan's Elena Rybakina, Bencic joined Golubic late on Thursday to beat Pigossi and Stefani 7-5 6-3 in 95 minutes.
The Court 3 surrounds may not have been as auspicious as her Centre Court setting for the singles, but the celebrations were no less emotional, Bencic collapsing to her knees after firing the decisive forehand winner before jumping up to embrace Golubic, laughing and crying in equal measure.
"The Olympics, for me, is the spirit of sport," Golubic said when asked what it meant to have secured a medal, whatever colour it may be.
"Connecting people all over the world, sharing of emotions and freedom, all being connected by sport, this is what it mean for me even when I was a small girl. I remember watching the Olympics – you watch all those different sports that you usually don’t watch, but through emotions you are so connected with each other and the spirit of sport.
"This is big – it’s not just tennis or athletics, it’s kind of the meaning of life. This is why to even be here, to be an Olympian is huge, to be honest – obviously everywhere, and in Switzerland, but also for me. Now we are actually medallists, this is amazing."
Bencic said she believes this to be the best day of her career to date, following her singles semi-final with victory in the doubles.
"This is the biggest result I have reached so far – and the biggest result in doubles," she said. "To do it both in the same day, it’s for sure the best result. I don’t really want this dream to stop – we were talking about maybe we wake up tomorrow and none of this happened and we’re going to be sad! But it’s reality. We’re super-happy."