
Flavio Cobolli and Belinda Bencic capped a dominant run through the Mixed Doubles Invitational draw Saturday to claim the title.
One day after taking out defending champions Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori, Cobolli and Bencic ousted top seeds Gabriela Dabrowski and Lloyd Glasspool 6-3, 2-6, 10-7, dropping their only set of the week in the championship match.
The winners will split $360,000 in prize money.
In the first week of the season, Cobolli watched courtside as Bencic teamed with fellow Swiss Jakub Paul to win a tie-clinching mixed doubles rubber in Switzerland's group-stage victory over Italy in the United Cup in Perth.
Get TicketsCobolli said that the partnership almost didn’t materialize as a wrist injury had him thinking he would not be fit to compete.
“I was a little bit struggling with my wrist,” the Italian said. “So we wait maybe the last few minutes to sign. But at the end, my wrist was okay, and we played four amazing matches together. She's always nice to me. Not like her daughter (smiling).”
Asked to provide context to Cobolli’s quip about her daughter, Bencic said, “I think he's winning over her heart very slowly,” she said. “She's very skeptical, and I tell her not to talk to strange men (laughter). Then I think in two days she will love him, because he's so good with kids.
“Now she's in the age where she's very shy and she's very skeptical, but I can see that slowly he's winning over her heart.”
Dabrowski of Canada and Glasspool of Great Britain took out Greek stars Maria Sakkari and Stefanos Tsitsipas in a match tiebreak Friday to reach the final.
Bencic has won 10 WTA singles titles but just two doubles titles. She did win a doubles silver medal at the Tokyo Olympics, where she also won singles gold.
Cobolli is at a career-high No. 15 in the ATP singles rankings, but he has won just seven of 26 career tour-level doubles matches.