India's Rohan Bopanna and Australian Matthew Ebden dug deep to win the Australian Open men's doubles title on Saturday with a 7-6 (0), 7-5 victory over Italian duo Simone Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori.
The second seeds fell to the ground after overcoming their Italian challengers before bowing to the crowd at the Rod Laver Arena.
Bolelli and Vavassori held their own in the opening set and earned their first break point at 5-5, but the Indian-Australian pair rallied to save serve and ran out easy winners in the tiebreak, backed by the crowd.
The second set looked to be headed the same way, going with serve and locked at 5-5, until Vavassori's serve was broken leaving Ebden to serve for the match.
This could not have been possible if I did not have a fantastic Aussie partner by my sideRohan Bopanna said.
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It is the first major win for the pairing, who lost last year's US Open final, and Bopanna will be world number one when the rankings are updated on Monday, with Ebden at number two having played three more tournaments during the ranking period
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