They had already beaten the odds to reach the women’s doubles finals, so it was not an overwhelming surprise that unseeded Nathalie Dechy and Vera Zvonareva were able to withstand the challenge from No. 8 seeds Dinara Safina and Katarina Srebotnik to take the 2006 US Open title, 7-6(5), 7-5.
Said Zvonareva after the match, “That's what we work for [for] 20 years, to play in front of the crowd, in the center court of the Grand Slam in the finals. It's a great opportunity. You just got to enjoy. No matter how you play, try to do it.”
Safina-Srebotnik had earned their place in the final with two significant upsets – over No. 3 seeds Cara Black-Rennae Stubbs in the quarterfinals and over No.1 seeds Lisa Raymond-Samantha Stosur in the semis.
Interestingly, Dechy-Zvonareva seemed the less organized of the two teams. More than once they both dove for the same ball, seemingly with no communication between them. Twice this resulted in them smacking their rackets together and losing the point.
Safina-Srebotnik seemed to have more of a proclivity toward a controlled baseline game, but the difference in their cadence as compared to that of Dechy-Zvonareva made for a very choppy match. Rather than moving smoothly and rapidly as tends to be the norm in doubles, the women moved at a much slower – sometimes plodding -- pace. It was almost as if they were affected by the beautiful, lazy sunny day. Even the crowd was quiet, with several couples seen canoodling at courtside.
Appropriately, neither team served an ace, with the fastest serve coming in at 106mph.
A spirited rally at 4-5 in the first set gave Safina-Srebotnik an opportunity to break and take the set, but Dechy-Zvonareva fought back to get even and then maintained momentum to win it.
The second set was mostly a replay of the first – slow and drawn out with the tempo moderate, at best.
Finally, Dechy-Zvonareva were up 6-5 with Safina-Srebotnik on serve trying, with one last gasp, to save themselves. However, at 0-40 it wasn’t meant to be and Dechy-Zvonareva, took the title in a straight-sets victory.
