After fighting through to the doubles final of the Australian Open, Britain’s Henry Patten and his Finnish partner Harri Heliovaara revealed that they had bonded over reindeer stew.

Having ousted the German duo of Kevin Krawietz and Tim Pütz by a 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 scoreline, Patten and Heliovaara spoke about the training week they spent together in Helsinki at the end of last season.

“It was the first time I cooked reindeer stew,” said Heliovaara, who is 35. “It’s a very traditional Finnish food, but I did it perfectly, not gonna lie, and Henry liked it. Maybe, yeah, we got a little bit closer to each other after that shared moment.

“Henry decided to stay at our place when he came to Finland for a couple days of training,” added Heliovaara, “I think it shows on court that we are very good friends. Get along on and off the court, and that really makes it easy to play, even in the big moments.”

Heliovaara and 28-year-old Patten originally teamed up in April, claiming a first ATP title together at their first attempt in Marrakesh. They then made a gigantic, career-changing breakthrough when they won Wimbledon as an unseeded partnership.

Here, they came in as the sixth seeds, and have made confident progress through the draw. This semi-final involved the first deciding set that they have played in the tournament, and their reward for winning it will be a final on Saturday evening against the Italian duo of Simone Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori.

After last summer’s Wimbledon triumph, the pairing had their credentials questioned by former world No 1 Andy Roddick on his Served podcast.

As Roddick put it: “We had this crazy bash between Heliovaara and Patten against Jordan Thompson and Max Purcell, two credible singles players. You ask, ‘Who is Patten?’ Probably haven’t heard that name with good reason. He played at UNC Asheville and was then the courtside statistician for IBM during this very event.

“And a few years later, he is winning the men’s doubles title with Heliovaara, who also had a moonlighting job. He was in charge of passenger complaints at the Helsinki Airport. I don’t know if this speaks well of doubles that it could accommodate these kinds of backstories – or maybe it doesn’t.”

Roddick was then challenged on social media by the pairing’s British coach, Calvin Betton, who said: “Everyone can hear you on your podcast, mocking, laughing and disrespecting professional athletes… [It is] a nonsense half-baked story.”

As Betton added, Patten had taken the IBM courtside analyst role for a little extra money, spending just 10 days logging serves in 2015. Having started the Australian Open at No 13 in the world doubles rankings, he will finish it as either No 6 or No 4, depending on the result of the final.