
Harri Heliovaara and Henry Patten stepped up when it mattered most Thursday at the Australian Open.
The sixth-seeded duo booked its spot in the championship match in Melbourne after an absorbing 6-4, 3-6, 7-6(10-7) victory over Kevin Krawietz and Tim Puetz. The 2024 Wimbledon champions, Heliovaara and Patten dropped their first set of the tournament, but recovered in a clinical Match Tie-break to reach their maiden final at the Australian Open.
“That brought memories from Wimbledon,” said Heliovaara in their on-court interview. “We won two matches in the third-set Match Tie-break last summer, and now we were able to do it again at the Aussie Open. That’s a very good sign. It was just an amazing atmosphere playing on this court for the first time, and we showed our best, so we can be very proud.”
Heliovaara and Patten crucially saved all four of the break points they faced in the final set, according to Infosys Stats, before wrapping up a two-hour, one-minute win. The 2024 Nitto ATP Finals champions, Krawietz and Puetz were bidding to reach their second major final as a team after they fell short to Max Purcell and Jordan Thompson in last year’s US Open final.
With the title on the line, Heliovaara and Patten will face third seeds and reigning Australian Open finalists Simone Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori, who improved to nine consecutive match wins after their semi-final triumph in Melbourne.
The Italians rallied past Andre Goransson and Sem Verbeek 2-6, 6-3, 6-4 to reach the final for a second consecutive year. After clinching the Adelaide International crown earlier this month, Bolelli and Vavassori continued their emphatic start to the 2025 season with a one-hour, 52-minute comeback win.
“Happy to be in the final again after last year, we’re playing a really good tournament,” said Bolelli. “They played an unbelievable first set and we had to organise a new game for the second set. They surprised us, actually, they were really aggressive on return. But we kept fighting.”
Heliovaara and Patten downed Bolelli and Vavassori in the first round at Wimbledon last year to kickstart their inspired run to the title, but the Italians fought back to claim revenge in the China Open final in October. Their Lexus ATP Head2Head series is evenly poised at 1-1 heading into Saturday's championship-match clash in Melbourne.