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Croatian No. 1 seeds Nikola Mektic and Mate Pavic have won gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics after beating fellow compatriots Marin Cilic and Ivao Dodig 6-4 3-6 10-6. Mektic and Pavic, who recently won Wimbledon, captured their ninth title of the season at the Tokyo Olympics.
Mektic and Pavic broke Cilic and Dodig in the third game of the first set and then held on to their serve the rest of the set to win the opener. After losing the first set, Cilic and Dodig bounced back well as they claimed their first break of the match in the sixth game and then served out for a decider in the ninth game.
However, No. 1 seeds Mektic and Pavic kept their focus after losing the second set they took an early 6-0 lead in the match tie-break before realizing their first match point.
Marcus Daniell and Michael Venus join Mektic and Pavic in the winners' circle
In the bronze medal match, New Zealand's Daniell and Venus beat USA's Austin Krajicek and Tennys Sandgren 7-6 (3) 6-2.
"They weren't my first tears of the Olympics, if I'm being honest... it just means so much," admitted Daniell. "It always means more when you've got the silver fern on your chest and you're performing for your country in something so much bigger than yourself.
You feel that fire and the group energy of New Zealand and the spirit of New Zealand. You feel that when you see the photos from back home, of everyone getting behind the whole team. "I can't describe how much that means. We don't often get to feel that on the tour.
We have the country next to our name, but it's for ourselves. To be able to come to the Olympics and come away with a bronze and do it for New Zealand... it's just very surreal. "We've made a little bit of history today and I really hope it's inspiring to the younger generation in New Zealand and gets people to pick up some tennis rackets and see it as a high performance sport, as an Olympic sport."