Tennis: Top seeds cruise to doubles crown

Katarina Srebotnik of Slovenia (L) and Kveta Peschke of Czech Republic celebrate winning the doubles final. Photo / Getty Images

Top seeds Kveta Peschke and Katarina Srebotnik proved too slick for the New Zealand-Swedish combination of Marina Erakovic and Sofia Arvidsson today, cruising to a straight-sets tennis victory in the doubles final at the ASB Classic.

Czech Peschke and Slovenian Srebotnik won 6-3 6-0 in just 52 minutes against a pairing playing together for the first time this week.

Their only hiccup was Srebotnik dropping serve in the opening game.

After that, their greater experience in doubles - they have 38 titles between them and were runners-up in the WTA Tour Championships last year - showed through.

Peschke's net coverage was a particular feature and the pair repeatedly put their opponents on the back foot.

The title was Srebotnik's second in doubles in Auckland, having won here in 2005 when the runners-up also included a New Zealander, Leanne Baker.

She also took out the singles crown that year.

While disappointed with the loss, Erakovic said Peschke and Srebotnik were simply a level up.

"In the first set, we played pretty decent, but they played much better, and they started to get better and better as the match went along," she said.

"They were moving forwards a lot, attacking, aggressive. It was hard for us to play that sort of tennis. We haven't played much together and this is a whole other level of play."

For Erakovic, making the doubles final represented a good start to the year and she and Arvidsson are considering teaming up again in Memphis next month.

Meanwhile, she is waiting to find out if she and Thailand's Tamarine Tanasugarn get entry into the Australian Open doubles event.

That news is expected to come through on Monday.

She also has her fingers crossed that she might get a wildcard into singles qualifying for the year's first Grand Slam tournament but, with a ranking of 333, she admitted her chances weren't high.

Arvidsson, who has a singles ranking of 53, will continue her build-up to the Australian Open by going to Hobart next week.

- NZPA