Colin Fleming and Jocelyn Rae defy the odds to serve up unexpected gold

IT WAS a minute to midnight local time when Jocelyn Rae whacked a forehand down the line to claim Scotland's third gold of these Commonwealth Games, the mixed doubles title at the RK Khanna stadium. She and Colin Fleming, after just a handful of games together as a partnership, had beaten the No 1 seeds, Anastasia Rodionova and Paul Hanley, of Australia, 7-6, 6-7, 6-2.

• Scotland's Colin Fleming and Jocelyn Rae show off their medals after a thrilling final against the favourites

It was an improbable triumph given the quality of those opponents and the rawness of the Scottish pairing, but it was also one which showed maturity and fortitude. After playing poorly in the opening few games, they could have crumbled and settled for silver - which would in itself have been no mean achievement. Instead, they dug in not only in that first set, but again in the third after they had been pegged back to a set apiece.

At 19, Rae is inexperienced, but she has the mixture of athleticism and sheer power which could help her go a long way. Seven years his partner's senior, Fleming took a temporary break from tennis a while back to concentrate on his studies. He revelled in this win, grinning broadly towards the end, and the result must have convinced him more than ever that he did the right thing in returning to professional sport.

"What expectations did we have?" he asked as the crickets chirped ever louder in the background and beetles littered the green carpet surface surrounding the court. "We just came here to represent our country.

"We knew we had a good (tennis] team. All the players were capable of coming home with a medal - I couldn't be happier that it's us.

"And it's a fabulous gold. Unreal, absolutely unreal. It still feels like the match is going on. It doesn't feel like we've beaten them yet."

Asked about the few games it took him to get going, Fleming answered: "It was horrible stuff. It just didn't feel like it was my own legs on my body. It just felt totally out of sorts.

"We just fought hard; to win the first set was crazy stuff. Jocelyn is 19 and she's stepping up to the plate. I had the feeling I was the girl with some of the shots she was coming out with and some of the things I was missing."

Rae also felt like the match was still going on, and on being asked about her winning shot could not remember it at first. She will remember this night all right, however. "It's kind of blurry at the moment," she said. "Colin kept me sane during that, so it was good."

Rodionova had already won the singles, beating local favourite Sania Mirza in the final, and claimed a second gold earlier last night when she and Sally Peers took the women's doubles crown."Yep, two down - one to go," she said, just a little presumptuously, after winning second gold.

Born in the Soviet Union in 1982, she has a long-standing mixed-doubles pedigree, and reached the final of the event at Wimbledon in 2003 with Andy Ram. The 32-year-old Hanley has also lost a mixed final at SW19 - in 2005 he and Tatiana Perebiynis were beaten by Mary Pierce and Mahesh Bhupathi. After the stadium was filled to capacity earlier in the evening, there were only a couple of hundred people left on Centre Court for the match, but, apart from a small knot of Australians, all were supporting the Scots. A group of Indian volunteers were particularly vocal in their support, chanting "Scotland, Scotland" and "Fleming, Fleming".

The Scots started off slowly and went a break behind, but recovered to take the first set to a tiebreak. They had to save two points in it, but again upped their game when it mattered most to claim it 9-7.

The second set was a more even affair and again went to the tiebreak. This time the Australians had the upper hand, and won it 7-2 to force the match into a third and deciding set.

Undeterred by that setback, Fleming and Rae went a break up in the second game of that set, then stormed through the third game to take a 3-0 lead. By this stage Rodionova was beginning to show the effects of her earlier labours, but she held her serve to close the deficit to 3-1.

Both men did the same to move the score on to 4-2 in favour of the unseeded couple, and then the big-hitting Rae made it 5-2, saving three break points as the Australians went for broke.

With victory in sight, the Scots did not falter, and clinched the championship with their first match point to complete an inspiring triumph.