The talented duo of Amelie Mauresmo and Svetlana Kuznetsova beat No. 3 seeds Kveta Peschke and Lisa Raymond in the doubles final at the Sony Ericsson Open today, 4-6, 6-3, 10-3. It was an impressive run for this wild card team, considering they also had to beat top seeds Cara Black and Liezel Huber in the second round. It was all smiles afterward, with Svetlana cracking the room up with jokes about becoming a doubles specialist and/or having a sex change operation. Hmmm, if given the choice. . .

Anyway, it’s probably not going to make the front page of tennis.com, so I thought I’d share some tidbits from the press conference (plus, I’m still trying to think of  something original to say about Murray vs. Djokovic):

Q. What is the motivation (to succeed in doubles)?  What keeps you going to get to today?
AMÉLIE MAURESMO: Well, we don’t want to lose. (Laughter.)
SVETLANA KUZNETSOVA: But we enjoy so much playing, I think, and we have so much fun.  If I played with someone who put me angry faces and tell me how bad I am, definitely I rather go home and spend time with family.  But I enjoy playing with Amélie.  We have so much fun, and every time we play better.  I think we played much better this year than past years.
AMÉLIE MAURESMO: Yes.

Q. Looking forward to win the French, Wimbledon, US Open?
AMÉLIE MAURESMO: Yeah, all of them.
SVETLANA KUZNETSOVA: We want to become doubles stars, specialists.

Q. I was talking in singles.
AMÉLIE MAURESMO: Both.  And mixed also.
SVETLANA KUZNETSOVA: Both, yes.  And mixed, yes.  Somebody become a man and we will play, because we don’t want to play with other partner. We have too much fun.

Q. Are you going to play the big ones this year?
AMÉLIE MAURESMO: We don’t know yet really.
SVETLANA KUZNETSOVA: We’ll see.
AMÉLIE MAURESMO: We said Miami and Indian Wells, and then we will see.
SVETLANA KUZNETSOVA: The schedule is tough.  We would love to play, but if it doesn’t disturb our singles.  This is the key point.

Random thought for fellow Mauresmo fans: wouldn’t it be cool if Amelie got a French Open title this year – in doubles? She shouldn’t rule it out. And Svetlana would be a great partner.

Also props to Max Mirnyi and Andy Ram for picking up their second ATP doubles title as a team, beating Australians Ashley Fisher and Stephen Huss in the men’s doubles final on Saturday. Yesterday was a big day for Belarus – with both Azarenka and Mirnyi in the winner’s circle.

Photo by Matthew Stockman/Getty Images at Daylife