Intro:

Martina Hingis and Leander Paes beat Kristina Mladenovic and Daniel Nestor 6-4, 6-3 on Sunday (1st February) to win the Australian Open mixed doubles title.

Martina Hingis and Leander Paes discuss their Australian Open final win on Sunday (1st February)

Script:

With seven Australian Open mixed doubles titles amongst them, defending champions Kristina Mladenovic and Daniel Nestor faced Martina Hingis and Leander Paes in Sunday's final.

Seventh seeds Hingis and Paes made a perfect start to the match, breaking their opponents in the second game before moving into a 3-0 lead.

However, Mladenovic and Nestor then turned the tables and rattled off three games in succession to level matters at 3-3.

The third seeds faltered as they served to stay in the set though - a double fault from Nestor handing Hingis and Paes a break and the set, 6-4.

Mladenovic and Nestor broke for a 2-1 lead at the start of the second set, only to see Hingis and Paes level straight away.

The Swiss/Indian combination grabbed another break in their opponents' next service game to lead 4-2, but once again a strong position wasn't fully capitalised upon.

Another immediate break back followed, but France's Mladenovic failed to hold in the next game and Paes then served out a 6-4, 6-3 victory.

It was his third Australian Open mixed doubles title, but first with Hingis, who won a Grand Slam title for the first time since coming out of retirement for a second time in 2013.

The five-time Grand Slam singles champion had previously won the title in 2006 with Paes' former men's doubles partner Mahesh Bhupathi.

SOUNDBITE (English) Martina Hingis, Australian Open mixed doubles winner:(On winning the Australian Open on the same court she won her first career Grand Slam 18 years earlier)

"In the ceremony my voice became really little. After 20 years being back on that court, like I said in my speech, who would have thought. It's not even like the cherry on top, it's more than that to be there and to be able to hold another trophy with Leander. It's more than I could ever dream of, yeah."