MELBOURNE, Jan 26 — Taiwan veteran Hsieh Su-wei and Polish partner Jan Zielinski were crowned Australian Open mixed doubles champions today, outlasting American Desirae Krawczyk and Britain’s Neal Skupski 6-7 (5/7), 6-4, 11-9.

The pair saved a championship point in the match tie-break to claim their first major title as a team.

"It means a lot,” said Zielinski. "Since yesterday I was getting a lot of messages, a lot of statistics that there were four Polish players who had lost in the (mixed) finals before.

"But Su-Wei said before the match when we were walking onto the warm-up that she’s a curse-breaker. She is. Thanks to her for breaking the Polish curse in the mixed doubles finals.” — AFP