Mirza and Hingis hand out lesson in doubles to lift WTA year-ender
Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis steamrolled eighth seeded Spaniards, Garbine Muguruza and Carla Suarez Navarro 6-0, 6-3 to lift the WTA Finals Singapore on Sunday. The victory added the cherry on top of a great week for the Indo-Swiss pair as they collected their ninth title this year and ended the year-end rankings at No. 1.
“Sania played out of her mind,” a grinning Martina Hingis said in the post-match press conference, and it was not an exaggeration.
Mirza closed out the first game of the first set with an ace, holding her opponents to love, and that set the tone for the rest of the match. The Indo-Swiss pair followed that up by breaking Muguruza's serve in the next game.
Mirza and Hingis seemed to have come into this game with a clear tactic of targeting Carla Navarro at the net. The duo did not miss any opportunity to hit the ball at Navarro's body and the 27-year-old had no answers when her reflexes started letting her down.
The World no.1 pair raced through the first set to 6-0, breaking their opponents' serve thrice. Mirza dominated the game with her scorching forehands while Muguruza and Navarro struggled to gain any momentum.
In the opening of the second set, on Mirza's serve, Navarro and Muguruza had a glimpse of hope but it was quickly snuffed out by Mirza who pulled out her big serves once again, and wrested the game.
Mirza and Hingis continued to bully Navarro at the nets and the second game of the second set perfectly displayed Navarro's mindset at that point. Hingis came up to the net and even before she struck the ball, Navarro turned her back and ran towards for the baseline. The ball clipped the tape of the net and tumbled over, leaving a stranded Navarro no time to recover.
Trailing 2- 0 in the second set, the Spanish duo started counter-attacking, earning them two break-points on Hingis' serve. An unforced error from Hingis awarded Muguruza and Navarro with their first game of the match, and the crowd gave them a standing ovation- half in jest.
But, before you could blink Mirza and Hingis had reached 5-2 and had three championship points at 0-40. The Spaniard pair managed to put up a show of futile resistance to take the score to 5-3.
However, Mirza, indisputably the best performer in the final, serve out the next game with ease to win them the title.
The match had a few celebrity attendees, as all-time great Martina Navratilova watched on from the stands.
Mirza- Hingis who have dominated the tour since joining forces back in March, lifted their ninth title of this season with their 55th win of the year, which includes an unbeaten run of 22 matches.
Mirza, who won the WTA Finals doubles title last year with Cara Black, successfully defended her crown, while Martina Hingis became only the 15th player in history to win 50 WTA doubles titles.
