LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s Henry Patten and Finland’s Harri Heliovaara beat Australians Max Purcell and Jordan Thompson 6-7(7) 7-6(8) 7-6(11-9) in the men’s doubles final at Wimbledon on Saturday to clinch their first grand slam titles.
The unseeded duo of Patten and Heliovaara started playing together only three months ago but ousted seeded pairs en route to the final to meet the Australians, who had knocked out the top seeds Marcel Granollers and Horacio Zeballos in the semi-finals.
Remarkably, the match had no breaks of serve as each set went into a tiebreak and with the pressure increasing with each game, Patten and Heliovaara saved three championship points to force a decider.
After nearly three hours on court, it was Patten who stepped up in the tiebreak as the former Wimbledon statistician and his Finnish partner edged the Australians to win the match, receiving a standing ovation from the Centre Court crowd.
(Reporting by Rohith Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Toby Davis)
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