Paes-Black pair win Australian Open mixed doubles title

Leander Paes and his Zimbabwean partner Cara Black clinched the Australian Open mixed doubles Championship with a straight-set win at Melbourne on Sunday. Leander equalled the record for most Grand Slam title triumphs by an Indian. With this, Paes has equalled one-time doubles' partner Mahesh Bhupathi's tally.

Top seeds and favourites, the 36-year-old Paes and the 30-year-old Black beat 10th seeds Ekaterina Makarova of Russia and Jaroslav Levinsky of Czechoslovakia 7-5 6-3 in just about one and a half hour.

The triumph gave the Indian his 11th overall and fifth mixed doubles title.

The last couple of times they reached a Grand Slam final, Paes and Black ended up on the losing side and eager to make amends for that, they were dominant from the word go on Sunday.

They broke their rivals as early as in the third game and save for a couple of breaks lost on Black's serve, the Indo-Zimbabwean pair seemed hardly troubled by Makarova and Levinsky, who committed far too many unforced errors.

This is Paes and Black's second title together, the first being the 2008 US Open.

Paes has been a former mixed doubles' champions at Melbourne Park and that triumph came in 2003 when he was partnering American legend Martina Navratilova