A fighting performance has seen Casey Dellacqua and Yaroslava Shvedova move in to the final of the women’s doubles at the US Open.
The number four seeds produced a stunning comeback to move into their second grand slam final with a 6-7(3) 7-5 7-5 win over CoCo Vandeweghe and Anna-Lena Groenefeld.
“This whole tournament for us has been a real fight,” Dellacqua said.
“We just had to fight hard. There’s no other real way to describe getting through that match. It was just a matter of fighting hard together and getting through that one.”
Dellacqua openly admits to not having played their best tennis thus far at the US Open; four of their first five matches have gone to three sets, however good teams win when they don’t play their best, and Dellacqua and Shvedova are a very good team.
“There’s a lot of matches (at this tournament) we potentially could have lost,” Dellacqua said.
“But we just fought hard, and we’re here now and we’re in the final, so let’s enjoy it, enjoy the moment, play our best tennis, and see how we go.”
Things will only get tougher in the final where top ranked duo Martina Hingis and Sania Mirza await.
“It’ll be really exciting.
“I think the good thing for us is that we’ve actually played them before (at Wimbledon in July) … we know what to expect I guess.
“If we play our game and do what we do well, we can definitely trouble them.”
While Flushing Meadows is only Dellacqua and Shvedova’s seventh tournament together, the pairing has thus far proven successful with a title in Madrid and finals appearances at the French Open and Cincinnati.
“It’s pretty cool,” said the West Australian.
“We only started playing together in Madrid, which was in May, so to have made two Grand Slam finals since then in six tournaments together, I guess you could say we team up pretty well.”
Dellacqua is aiming for her first women’s doubles grand slam title in what will be her sixth final.
Shvedova meanwhile has had to shake up her plans for the weekend – she was supposed to get married tomorrow but has of course postponed the big day.
The final will be played at 12pm New York time on Sunday (2am AEST Monday morning).