Makarova and Vesnina cruise to women's doubles title
Russians Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina won the Wimbledon women's doubles title for the first time on Saturday with a crushing 6-0, 6-0 victory over the pairing of Taiwan's Hao-Ching Chan and Romanian Monica Niculescu.
The second-seeded Russian pair have now won three of the Grand Slam events in doubles following their triumph at the French Open in 2013 and the US Open a year later.
The final lasted 54 minutes and the Russians, runners-up at the All England Club in 2015, had to save just two break points in the entire match against the pairing playing in their first season together.
The top-seeded duo of American Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Czech Lucie Safarova had to withdraw before the second round after Mattek-Sands suffered a severe injury in a singles match.
Marathon men Kubot and Melo win men's doubles crown
Poland's Lukasz Kubot and Brazil's Marcelo Melo won the Wimbledon men's doubles title on Saturday after beating Oliver Marach and Mate Pavic 5-7, 7-5, 7-6(2), 3-6, 13-11 in an epic test of endurance.
The match had to be finished under the Centre Court floodlights with play suspended at 11-11 in the evening gloom for the roof to be closed.
Marach and Pavic were caught cold and broken in their first service game after the restart, leaving the victorious pair to fall to the floor in an exhausted celebration after clinching victory in a match lasting four hours and 39 minutes.
Both pairs had come through titanic five-set battles in the semi-finals, with Austrian Marach and Croatia's Pavic taking more than four and a half hours to subdue Croatians Nikola Mektic and Franko Skugor 17-15 in the final set.
