PARIS (AP) — Katerina Siniakova and Tomas Machac hugged and kissed each other when they won the 2024 Olympics mixed doubles tennis gold medal for the Czech Republic on Friday night, then laughed about keeping their relationship status “top secret.”
Sinikova and Machac defeated Wang Xinyu and Zhang Zhizhen 6-2, 5-7, 10-8 in a match tiebreaker in the final. Olympics doubles uses a first-to-10, win-by-two tiebreaker instead of a standard third set.
Social media has been speculating about where things stand romantically between the new champions, who apparently have been a couple but might no longer be. Machac rolled his eyes when a reporter at the post-victory news conference brought up the topic by asking: “Are you still together?”
“That’s our personal life, so you don’t need to know that,” Siniakova said with a chuckle. “We like when you are confused.”
Machac chimed in to add: “This is top secret.”
Siniakova now owns the only two Summer Games tennis titles for her country. She teamed with Barbora Krejcikova to win the women’s doubles gold at the Tokyo Games three years ago.
Siniakova is a doubles specialist who has won a total of nine Grand Slam trophies.
The first seven came alongside Krejcikova. Since they stopped playing together, Siniakova teamed with Coco Gauff to win the French Open title this June — at Roland Garros, the same site being used for tennis during these Olympics — and with Taylor Townsend to win Wimbledon in July.
“I showed myself that I can play well with anyone,” Siniakova said, “and I should be more proud of myself.”
The mixed doubles bronze went to Gabriela Dabrowski and Felix Auger-Aliassime of Canada, who beat Demi Schuurs and Wesley Koolhof of the Netherlands 6-3, 7-6 (2).
Machac’s two best results in men’s doubles at Slam events came with Zhang as his partner this year. They are good pals and reached the Australian Open semifinals in January, then the quarterfinals at the French Open.
“Friendship’s totally broken,” Zhang joked. “He destroyed my Olympic Games.”
He and Wang leave Paris with a silver medal. Another player from China, Zheng Qinwen, will play in the women’s singles gold medal match on Saturday against Donna Vekic of Croatia.
Chinese tennis “is getting better,” Zhang said.
As for what advice the more-experienced and more-successful Siniakova offered Machac ahead of Friday’s final, he offered a kidding response, saying she told him: “Ace on the line and winner on the line.”
Siniakova made clear that her view actually is: “With a team, you are two, so it’s really helpful when you communicate and you help each other.”
Sounds like perfect words of wisdom for a doubles pair.
Or an off-the-court couple.
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AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games
