For Barbora Strycova and Su-Wei Hsieh, there was some confusion when they entered the BNP Paribas Open this year as a doubles team. But there was no confusing where they were Saturday afternoon — standing at Stadium 1 with their hands on the trophy. 

Strycova and Hsieh, playing together in a tournament for the first time ever, defeated top seed Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina 6-4, 6-4 on Saturday to claim the title. 

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Here's the kicker, they weren't supposed to be teammates. They signed up together 10 minutes before the deadline, just to get in the tournament, but then they thought they'd be able to make a switch before everything was set. Hsieh wanted to switch and play with Monica Niculescu (with whom she's playing in Miami) and Strycova wanted to play with Andrea Sestini Hlavachova. But they learned that wouldn't be allowed, so they were forced to stay together. Niculescu and Hlavachova also had to stay a team.

"At the last moment, I try to work this out. I play with Monica and you play with Andrea," Hsieh said. "But because of some of the rule problems, so we say, Okay, we stay like this."

From that awkward beginning, a great relationship was born, and no one can say they didn't deserve, because along the way, they beat the No. 3 seed (Gabriela Dabrowski and Yufan Xu), the No. 2 seed (Hao-Ching Chan and Latisha Chan) and then the top seeds in the final. 

Vesnina, who won the singles title here last year, has won the BNP Paribas Open doubles tournament three times, including once with Makarova in 2013. Hsieh also has a title here, with Shuai Peng in 2014. So that left Strycova as the lone player without a championship here, and you could tell by how excited she was when they won it. 

She was all smiles, high-fiving, spinning, hands in the air. It was the biggest win of her career. 

"Well, it's great. It's the biggest tournament in doubles I won, and it feels awesome. To play, to have Su-Wei next to me, it was really special," Strycova said. "When I was serving out the match, I was a little bit shaky, but I was serving it good, so I was very happy that we won that game easy."



While some doubles teams succeed because they share the same style and mindset, Hsieh and Strycova are more of an opposites-attract type of relationship. 

"Well, she's very calm and I'm very emotional, and it fits (smiling)," Strycova said. "So she makes me, like, being, like, calm and think a little bit, and then take it easy. That works for me. Yeah."


With this tournament starting like it did for Hsieh and Strycova and finishing like it did, it almost seemed like it was fate. 

Does Strycova believe in fate?

"I do, if you give positive energy. And like Su-Wei said, if you just enjoy and don't put so much pressure but you go for it, it can happen, good things," she said smiling and then motioning to the big glass trophy on the table. "And it happened (smiling)."

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