Olivia Nicholls and Tereza Mihalikova won the women’s doubles title at Queen’s on Sunday, beating Leylah Fernandez and Laura Siegemund 6-3 6-7 (4-7) 10-5 in the final. Fernandez and Siegemund forced the match into a deciding tiebreak, but the title slipped away there.
The result completed Queen’s finals coverage on a day that had already seen Emma Raducanu lose the HSBC Championships singles final to Donna Vekic earlier on Sunday. It also put Nicholls and Mihalikova into the Wimbledon seeding picture, with rankings due to be released on Monday.
For Fernandez, the run ended one step short of the trophy after a match that swung twice before the tiebreak settled it. The scoreline showed how close the final was: Nichols and Mihalikova took the first set 6-3, Fernandez and Siegemund answered by taking the second set 6-7 (4-7), then fell 10-5 in the match tiebreak.
That was the sharp edge of the afternoon. Fernandez had done enough with Siegemund to drag the final into the format designed to decide a level contest, but the pair could not hold off Nicholls and Mihalikova when it mattered most. The loss leaves the Queen’s women’s doubles title with the British-Czech pairing, while Fernandez walks away as a finalist after a match that was alive until the last stretch.
The broader picture is simple enough: Queen’s has now produced its women’s doubles champions, and the same finals day also reshaped the singles side of the Wimbledon build-up. Once the rankings are released on Monday, the attention turns to who moves into seeded positions, but for Fernandez the immediate story is already settled in the final score.
