CZECHIA is the toast of mixed doubles tennis at the Paris Olympics, after Katerina Siniakova and Tomas Machac proved too strong for China’s Xinyu Wang and Zhizhen Zhang in the gold medal match.

In a match that lasted about an hour and a quarter, the Czach duo ultimately prevailed in the third set tie breaker to win 6-2, 5-7, [10-8].

Although Wang and Zhang served the only aces of the match and dominated the service winners, they also served four times as many double faults and had a worse first serve percentage.

The Czech duo only converted half of their break point chances, it was still more break points converted than the Chinese pair as they only faced one chance. Unforced errors was also a huge weakness for Wang and Zhang, recording 31 of them compared to Siniakova and Machac’s 14.

This is Czechia’s first gold medal at this Olympics and its first ever mixed doubles gold, with their only other medal so far these Games being a bronze in fencing. It is also Siniakova’s second Olympic gold medal after she won the women’s doubles gold with Barbora Krejcikova three years ago.

Meanwhile the bronze medal went to Canada after Gabriela Dabrowski and Felix Auger-Aliassime defeated Dutch duo Demi Schuurs and Wesley Koolhof in straight sets, in a match that lasted about an hour and a half.

In a match littered with double faults on both sides, the Canadians won some crucial stats to ultimately prevail for the medal.

They served the only three aces of the match, they won 18 more points off their first serve than their Dutch opponents, and had significantly less both forced and unforced errors than the Dutch duo.

The win was a historic won for the pair, with it being Canada’s second ever Olympic tennis medal.

MIXED DOUBLES – MEDAL MATCHES

K. Siniakova/T. Machac (CZE) defeated X. Wang/Z. Zhang (CHN) 6-2 5-7 [10-8]
G. Dabrowski/F. Auger-Aliassime (CAN) defeated D. Schurrs/W. Koolhof (NED) 6-3 7-6