Venus and Serena Williams, with the benefit of only one training session, won the Australian Open women's doubles titles on Friday, coming back from near defeat.

In a prelude to their singles final against each other on Saturday, the seemingly unstoppable duo had to save six break points that would have put them two breaks down in the deciding third set, then recovered to beat Paola Suarez and Virginia Ruano-Pascual 4-6 6-4 6-3.

While relatively anonymous to the tennis public compared to their illustrious opponents, the Argentine-Spanish pairing are reigning French and US Open title holders.

They were good humoured, but bewildered, about losing to a pair who treated doubles as an afterthought.

It was a match of a champion team against a team of champions, with the Williams's awesome service and ability to power their way out of adversity making up for their lack of doubles smarts.

Asked if it was a contest between two singles stars and a doubles team, Venus answered - without a hint of irony - "We definitely practised our doubles tactics before the match, for the first time in the tournament."

The critical point in the match came in game three of the final set, with the sisters already down a break and Serena on serve.

Suarez and Ruano-Pascual had six break points for the game, but could not strike the decisive blow, allowing the Americans to hold and then rattle off five of the next six games to take the title.

The sisters were controversially, but ultimately correctly, handed the number one seeding ahead of Friday's opponents despite Venus not having a doubles ranking.

Suarez joked after the match that she hoped the Williams family did not compete next year so she and her partner could win but was already planning revenge on the red clay of France.

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