Singapore: Indian tennis ace Sania Mirza and her Swiss partner Martina Hingis lifted their ninth title together this year beating the Spanish pair of Garbine Muguruza and Carla Suarez Navarro to clinch the WTA Finals women’s doubles trophy here on Sunday.
Sania and Martina, the top seeds, prevailed 6-0, 6-3 over their eight-seeded rivals in a lopsided summit clash, which lasted little over an hour.
Before this, Sania and Martina had won eight titles (Indian Wells, Miami, Charleston, Wimbledon, US Open, Guangzhou, Wuhan and Beijing) and finished runner-up just once (Rome – falling to WTA Rising Stars Timea Babos and Kristina Mladenovic).
The Indo-Swiss pairing dropped serve only once through the match and broke their opponents five times to wrap up a comprehensive victory.
Sania and Martina are now unbeaten in 22 matches, stretching back six tournaments. In fact, since their last defeat — to Chan Hao-Ching and Chan Yung-Jan in Cincinnati — they have dropped just two sets.
Muguruza and Suarez Navarro — late replacements in the draw after Casey Dellacqua and Yaroslava Shvedova’s withdrawal — were completely outplayed in the match.
“I feel like it was a perfect day. Sania just played out of her mind – she was everywhere today, getting everything back and playing incredible tennis,” Hingis said.
This triumph is especially huge for Martina as the trophy was her 50th WTA doubles title, a milestone only 15 players have reached (Martina Navratilova, Rosie Casals, Pam Shriver, Billie Jean King, Natasha Zvereva, Lisa Raymond, Jana Novotna, Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario, Gigi Fernandez, Helena Sukova, Larisa Neiland, Cara Black, Rennae Stubbs, Wendy Turnbull and Liezel Huber).
Sania and Martina ended the year as the world number one women’s doubles team and the Indian tennis ace said a win in the WTA Finals is the perfect way to wrap off the year. “To play in tournaments like this is what we’ve fought all our lives for and it’s incredible to play in front of a packed stadium,” said Sania.
“We feel very fortunate. We’ve done some amazing things together and it’s the perfect way to end the year for us,” she added.
(PTI)
