Venus and Serena Williams took their third Australian Open women's doubles title on Friday after easing through Daniela Hantuchova from Slovakia and Japanese veteran Ai Sugiyama 6-3, 6-3 in the final.

The Williams sisters started slowly in the opening set, dropping serve in their first game to allow their opponents to take a 2-0 lead, but the Americans, who have completed the career doubles Grand Slam, restored calmness to break back in the opponents' second service game to even the score at 2-2.

After that, they were never really threatened en route to the victory after just one hour and 16 minutes.

Venus and Serena Williams, now the eight-times Grand Slam doubles winners, also claimed the Sydney and Beijing Olympics doubles titles.

Serena Williams, second seeded in the women's singles, will gun for her 10th Grand Slam singles title and the world number one ranking against Russian world number three Dinara Safina in the Australian Open women's singles final on Saturday.

(Xinhua News Agency January 30, 2009)