Mirza-Hingis win Miami Open doubles title

Miami, April 6:

Sania Mirza claimed her 25th Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) doubles title and her 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. (IANS)