Dechy, Safina win Open doubles title in first tournament together

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NEW YORK -- Nathalie Dechy of France and Dinara Safina of Russia won the U.S. Open women's doubles title in their first tournament together, beating Chan Yung-Jan and Chuang Chia-Jung of Taiwan 6-4, 6-2 in Sunday's final.

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Dechy also won last year's doubles championship at Flushing Meadows, but with Vera Zvonareva as her partner -- and Safina was the runner-up, pairing with Katarina Srebotnik.

"Doesn't matter who's standing next to her. She can keep changing the partners, it's OK," Safina said, sitting alongside Dechy.

"Doesn't work like this, believe me," Dechy said.

Safina was supposed to play with Tatiana Golovin, who pulled out of the event. Safina heard that Dechy was looking for a partner and sent her a text message two days before the first round.

Safina is the younger sister of 2000 U.S. Open men's singles champion Marat Safin. This is her first major title in singles or doubles.

"It's special because my brother's first Grand Slam was also at the U.S. Open, so it's kind of a family tradition," Safina said.

Dechy said she and Safina had not yet talked about playing together in the future.

"We have time," she said. "But definitely, the way we played, it means we can do some great things also in the future."

For Chan and Chuang, this is a second runner-up finish at a major. They lost to Cara Black and Liezel Huber in the Australian Open doubles final in January.

Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press

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