There will be a Ukrainian in the final of the Australian Open
26 January 12:55
Liudmyla Kichenok will represent Ukraine in the Australian Open doubles final, where she has been paired with Alona Ostapenko, representing Latvia.
In the semi-finals of the tournament, Kichenok/Ostapenko defeated the Canadian-New Zealand pair of Dabrowski/Rutliffe 2-0 (7-5, 7-5). In both games, Kichenok and her partner were down 3:5, but then won 4 games in a row.
In the final, the girls will play against Xie Shuwei and Elise Mertens. The Taiwanese-Belgian duo is considered to be the favourites in the pair – bookmakers give them odds of 1.44, while the odds of 2.62 are set for Kichenok/Ostapenko to win.
The match will take place on Sunday, 28 January, at six in the morning Kyiv time.
Ukraine’s record
This year’s Australian Open brought a lot of positive emotions to Ukrainian fans. There were two Ukrainian women in the quarter-finals of the tournament, and Diana Yastremska set a new record as she became the first Ukrainian tennis player to reach the Australian Open semi-finals. She also repeated the record of Elina Svitolina, who was the only Ukrainian tennis player to reach the semi-finals at Grand Slam tournaments (twice at Wimbledon in 2019 and 2023, and at the US Open in 2019).