Olivia Gadecki and John Peers won the Australian Open mixed doubles title with a 3-6, 6-4, 10-6 comeback over Kimberly Birrell and John-Patrick Smith, completing a rare all-Australian final on Rod Laver Arena.

The pair entered the tournament as wildcards and turned the match around after losing the first set. Birrell and Smith, who were both part of the domestic charge in Melbourne, started sharply and broke early to take control. But the match changed when Smith double-faulted at 4-5 in the second set, allowing Gadecki and Peers to level the contest and force a deciding match tie-break.

From there, the eventual champions moved ahead quickly and held their nerve. They built a 4-1 lead in the tie-break, were briefly pegged back, then won five of the final six points to close out the victory in 84 minutes. Gadecki was prominent in the deciding moments, including a smash on match point.

The win was a milestone for both players and for Australian tennis. It was the first all-Australian mixed doubles final at Melbourne Park in the Open Era, and the first time since 1967 that all four finalists in a mixed doubles championship match on the Australian stage were locals. It was also the first Australian pair to win the mixed doubles title in Melbourne since Matt Ebden and Jarmila Wolfe in 2013.

Peers added another chapter to an already decorated doubles career. The veteran has now won mixed doubles Grand Slam titles in Melbourne and New York, along with an Australian Open men’s doubles title and Olympic gold in men’s doubles. Gadecki, meanwhile, used the run to recover from a poor singles campaign and said she had played some of her best tennis in the final moments.

Prize money underlined the scale of the occasion: Gadecki and Peers split $175,000, while Birrell and Smith shared $97,750. That is a fraction of the singles prize fund, but in a match like this the bigger reward was the title itself and the significance of four Australians contesting a final that tennis historians had to reach back decades to contextualize.

The result capped a strong Australian swing for Birrell as well, while Gadecki said she hoped the victory would help her push into the top 100. On a night built around local names, the home crowd got a final that delivered both a title and a slice of history.