Australia loves a good underdog story, and few in the sporting world have had to battle harder than Australia's Jason Kubler.
The 29-year-old Australian was a young phenom, a junior world number one. Kubler won his first adult tournament as a teenager. At just 16 years old he made his grand slam debut at the 2010 Australian Open that year
Then injuries hit. A lot of them. It would be eight long years until his second entry to the main draw at Melbourne Park, injuries taking their toll.
Last year Kubler had perhaps the highest moment of his career, making the final of the mixed doubles at the Australian Open. Although Kubler and Jaimee Fourlis went down in the final, it was some justification of the years of long struggle.
Kubler is back on the big stage this year as well. His partner this time is another young Australian, Rinky Hijikata. Before the Australian Open, the pair had never played doubles together.
Despite their new partnership, Kubler and Hijikata have shown a level of teamwork that often takes years to build. In the often transient world of doubles tennis, that is an impressive feat.
"It's super special. It's something we probably weren't expecting," Kubler said after winning their way to the final.
At the other end of the spectrum sit Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna, facing their first and last grand slam final together. This is the 36-year-old Mirza's last major, coming at the same place she won her first title way back in 2009.
Bopanna has history here too, with the 42-year-old making the final back in 2018. The Indian legends have won countless tournaments around the world with a wide variety of partners.
Australians have an affinity for team sports — for camaraderie and looking out for others. Where singles tennis is often a Sisyphean struggle alone in front of millions, where players speak contemplatively to themselves, doubles tennis is built on a foundation of communication with their teammates.
Doubles pairings like Ash Barty and Casey Dellacqua, and the Woodies have long captured the imagination of the nation with effortless communication and exciting play.
No doubt singles players are celebrated most prominently, but Australia has a soft spot for the doubles game.
"Australia is a very good doubles nation and that's something that's ingrained into the history of our tennis," Hijikata said.
"I guess both of us kind of grew up learning about the great doubles players of the past and it's kind of special trying to carry that forward."
Last year, Nick Kyrgios and Thanasi Kokkinakis battled Max Purcell and Matt Ebden in front of a record TV audience for a doubles match on Australian TV — drawing more eyeballs than any men's singles match since 2018. This year's final may not top that level, but it's started to draw the attention away from the singles finals in the eyes of locals.
So what makes doubles tennis so exciting?
How doubles is won
The goal in tennis is, more than anything else, to get the ball over the net and inside the court. Anything else is a bonus. Keeping the ball in play means that you stay alive, even if you can't stop the other player. Depth of shots, positioning, spin and ball placement all matter, but not as much as that core element — keeping the ball alive.
That core belief has increasingly evolved into the modern singles game. More points are decided by errors, both forced and unforced, than winners. Only around a third of points are clear winners in singles.
But doubles is a different beast.
Despite the court being filled with twice as many players, winners are responsible for most of the points in doubles tennis — rather than the mistakes of others. A big part of that is down to the positioning of players on the court.
In the singles game, winners are generally only hit down the alleys at the sides of the court, except on serve. Doubles tennis, however, creates an additional alley of uncertainty down the middle of the court. That's the zone between the two teammates, angles of attack to prod and defend.
Doubles opens up angles that just don't exist in singles tennis, often affording more aggressive shot-making.
Much of the play also happens close to the opposition at the net.
While volleying has become increasingly rare in the singles game, it is vital in doubles. The sight of four talented players picking up the ball almost before it has left the strings of their opponent is breathtaking to watch.
The secret language
If communication is at the core of doubles, then working out the lingua franca is often tough.
Tennis is, of course, a global game. While English is spoken by many players on the tour, there's another language that often takes the fore — an informal sign language.
The first serve location and strategy is usually decided in pre-point conversation, but sometimes the non-serving partner throws a late audible. But the second serve is almost always decided by two different hand signals.
The first decides where the ball will go — to the T, out wide or straight at the receiver's body.
Above, Desirae Krawczyk is giving the sign to Joe Salisbury to down the T by sticking her thumb out.
If Krawczyk threw her little finger out instead, that indicates a serve out wide. An exposed middle finger, two together or the devil's horns, indicates a serve to the body, on either the backhand or forehand side.
The second sign is just as important — deciding where the non-serving player will go after the ball lands in play. A fist indicates that the non-server will stay put. A pinched hand, like the face of a duck, indicates that they will wait and see where the return goes.
Above, Krawczyk flashes her full fist, indicating that she will stay put.
It's the third major sign, an open hand, that is perhaps the most exciting of them all. That calls for the poach — perhaps the most exciting play in tennis. That's where the non-server ducks across the court after the serve, ideally putting away the return at the net before the opposition can notice.
When it comes off it's spectacular to watch. When it fails, it can be disastrous.
Some teams use slightly different signs — such as indicating the actual direction with the second sign. In general, it's a relatively common language between pairings new and old alike. Getting the signs, and corresponding movements, right is often the difference between winning and losing.
The future of tennis
Mirza and Bopanna's mixed doubles final poses a glimpse of the potential future of tennis, even if they won't be around to experience.
Mixed doubles, like all other doubles events outside of grand slams, play only two full sets, with a 10-point tie-breaker to split teams if they share the first two sets.
The games themselves are shorter, with just a single point played to decide games stretched to deuce.
The pace is noticeably faster and means that the likelihood of 4am finishes is nearly non-existent. The balance between tension and resolution is a tight one, between being invested in a match and being able to see it finish.
As millions tune in to Kubler and Hijikata's coming-out party and Mirza's farewell, they might just fall back in love with doubles tennis again.
