Serena Williams teamed up with sister Venus to win the women's doubles title at the Australian Open for the third time.
Eighth grand slam crown for sister pairing
Serena Williams teamed up with sister Venus to win the women's doubles title at the Australian Open for the third time.
The Americans, seeded 10th, cruised to a 6-3 6-3 victory over Slovakia's Daniela Hantuchova and Ai Sugiyama of Japan to clinch their eighth grand slam doubles crown.
The sisters were broken three times but continually attacked the serve of their opponents, having eight opportunities to break and captialising on six of them.
"I have a great partner," said Serena, who takes on Dinara Safina in Saturday's singles final. "I don't have to work too hard out there. Just hit some big serves.
"Venus hits some big serves. We put the ball away. Sometimes we stay at the baseline because we have such great groundstrokes. We lose sight that we need to come in. Once we come in, I think it's even more dangerous."
The triumph took them into a tie for third on the all-time list for women's grand slam doubles titles, behind the pairings of Martina Navratilova and Pam Shriver (21) and Gigi Fernandez and Natasha Zvereva (14).
However, Venus insists they would have won more than eight times if they had entered in more tournaments.
"We haven't played so much in the last seven years or eight years," she said. "If we would have played during that time, we probably would have gotten even more.
