http://www.atptennis.com/en/newsandscores/news/news/ausopen11.asp
AUSTRALIAN OPEN Jan. 25, 2003
Santoro and Llodra Upset Top Seeds for Doubles Title
The French pair toppled defending champions Mark Knowles
and Daniel Nestor.
Frenchmen Fabrice Santoro and Michael Llodra won their first
doubles title together in impressive fashion Saturday,
overcoming top seeds Mark Knowles and Daniel Nestor 6-4,
3-6, 6-3 in the final at the first Grand Slam event of the
season.
The French duo, seeded No. 8, gained revenge from last year's
loss here to the same team, also in the final.
Knowles and Nestor were the strong favorites to capture their
second consecutive Australian Open doubles title, coming into
the match with a 2-0 series lead over their opponents. And in
the second set, after Santoro began struggling with a leg injury,
the match seemed destined to become a repeat from last year's
final. But the French pair, who played for the first time
together last year in Melbourne, battled back from being down
a break in the third set to seize the victory.
"It's good for me to play with this kind of player," Llodra
said of his 30-year-old partner. "He has a lot of experience
and today he helped me a lot."
This is the first time a French team has claimed the men's
doubles title at the Australian Open for 74 years, and the
first time a French team has won a Grand Slam doubles title
since 1984 when Henri Leconte and Yannick Noah were victorious
at Roland Garros.
Despite his disappointment, Knowles described the match as
being one of the best he's ever played.
"At the end of the day I guess the only thing you got to do is
take your hat off to those guys," he said. "I guess it's good
timing on their part that they played -- I haven't seen the
stats yet but, I mean, they played the best tennis I've seen
in a long time. We didn't do anything really wrong. They just
raised their level."
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