Hungary's Tímea Babos Scores WTA Finals Hat-Trick

No. 3 seeds Timea Babos of Hungary and Kristina Mladenovic of France became the first team to successfully defend a WTA Finals doubles title in 11 years. They defeated No. 2 seeds Hsieh Su-Wei of Taiwan and Barbora Strycova of the Czech Republic 6-1, 6-3 in a flawless performance to lift the Martina Navratilova Doubles Trophy in Shenzhen, China this Sunday.

The Franco-Hungarian duo went undefeated throughout the week and collected the largest monetary prize ever in professional doubles of USD one million They avenged their Wimbledon semifinal defeat to Hsieh and Strycova to become the first back-to-back champions at the year-end finale since Cara Black and Liezel Huber in 2007-2008. Babos, who also took the trophy in 2017 with her partner Andrea Sestini Hlavackova, is the first player to win a hat-trick of WTA Finals doubles titles since Lindsay Davenport in 1996-98 alongside Mary Joe Fernandez, Jana Novotna and Natasha Zvereva.

"Nothing better than to share it with Kiki!" Babos was quoted by the tournament's website. "Really, every tournament for me is the same when I can share it with her. It's amazing to be able to lift that trophy for the third time in a row. We're both hungry to be back and to get more," she added.