Czech duo Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova added the Olympic women’s doubles title to their French Open crown by beating Swiss singles champion Belinda Bencic and Viktorija Golubic in Sunday’s final.
The top seeds edged a tight opening set before racing through the second to win 7-5, 6-1 on their fifth match point.
Krejcikova, who also won the Roland Garros singles trophy earlier this year, and Siniakova had needed deciding tie-breaks in their last three matches, but were dominant against Bencic and Golubic.
It is the Czech Republic’s first Olympic gold medal in tennis. Slovak Miloslav Mecir took the singles title for Czechoslovakia in 1988.
The Czech Republic had previously won seven medals, including Marketa Vondrousova’s silver after losing Saturday’s singles final to Bencic.
“It’s very special (to be first Czech gold medallists),” said Krejcikova. “But also, the motivation we got from the previous medallists was very big and I think that we got really inspired by them.
“It’s really big. We’re really happy.”
Bencic had been looking to become only the fourth player to win singles and doubles golds at an Olympics since tennis returned to the Games in 1988, but had to settle for a silver.
© Agence France-Presse