Miami: Sania Mirza claimed her 25th Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) doubles title and second partnering Martina Hingis by winning the Miami Open trophy 7-5 6-1 against the Russian pair of Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina here.

The No.2-seeded Makarova and Vesnina came out strong, storming out to a 5-2 lead, but the No.1-seeded Hingis and Mirza came alive from there, reeling off eight games in a row – even staving off a set point – to surge ahead, 7-5, 3-0. They barely looked back to close out the match on Sunday.

“The most important thing is that we never stopped believing we’re a great team,” Hingis said of the early deficit after winning on Sunday.

“They played a great set to get us to that position, 5-2 down. Then we just tried to stay in there and get our chances. We just built on every point, which is what we did well last week too.”

The Swiss-Indian duo talked about how an on-court coaching visit helped them turn it around.

“Today the coaching really turned it around – your dad came on court,” Hingis said to Mirza.

“We just tried to keep telling each other to enjoy the struggle,” Mirza said. “Last week everything came very, very easily to us – we didn’t lose more than four games in a set. Over here we were down, and we were panicking. It was like, ‘Oh my God, we’re not playing well.’ We just weren’t used to that.

But it’s good to fight through those matches and believe, and come out now and be like, ‘At 5-3 I was gutsy to hit a big serve,’ or she made a huge move at 5-4, if that makes sense. So it’s good,” Hingis added.

Mirza and Hingis have now won their opening two tournaments they have played together.

Hingis now has 43 WTA doubles titles to her name, which matches the 43 WTA singles titles she’s won in her career. Meanwhile, Mirza took home the milestone 25th WTA doubles title of her career.

The Mirza-Hingis pair will now jump from ninth to third position in the WTA rankings as a result of the victory.

(IANS)

Miami: Indo-Swiss tennis combine Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis reached their second successive women’s doubles final when they entered the summit clash of the Miami Open with a straight sets win at the Tennis Center at Crandon Park here.

The top seeds defeated the Hungarian-French pairing of Timea Babos and Kristina Mladenovic 6-2, 6-4 in exactly an hour on Saturday.

Sania and Martina will take on Russian second seeds Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina in the final on Sunday whom they had defeated last month in Indian Wells to win their maiden tournament as a pair.

Though the top seeds served twice the number of double faults, they were better in every other aspect of the game than their seventh seeded opponents.

Crucially, Sania and Martina won five of the available breakpoints to that of two out of 10 chances for Timea and Kristina.

“We’re still learning to play with each other so it’s good to play against a tough team like that. They’re really good,” Sania said.

“We were down a break in the first set so we’re happy we were able to get it back and win the first set 6-2. We’re just happy to be in another final now.”

Their opponents in the final — Ekaterina and Elena — overcame Czech ninth seeds Andrea Hlavackova and Lucie Hradecka 6-4, 6-2 in the other semifinal.

Asked what they would be doing to defeat the Russian girls, Sania quipped, “The same as we did last week! We just have to keep focused and fight for every point. I keep saying this — names don’t win you matches, neither does any result. Every day is a different day.”

(IANS)