Monday, September 28, 2015

Martina Hingis & Sania Mirza win Guangzhou Open in China, their 6th title of 2015




GUANGZHOU, China - Martina Hingis and Sania Mirza continued right where they left off at the US Open this week, winning their second straight WTA doubles title together - and their sixth of the year - at the Guangzhou International Women's Open, not even dropping a set en route to the title.

After a first round bye, the No.1-seeded Hingis and Mirza beat Anna-Lena Friedsam and Monica Niculescu in the quarters, 6-2, 6-3, and then Julia Glushko and Rebecca Peterson in the semis, 6-3, 6-4, before their most dominant performance against Xu Shilin and You Xiaodi in the final, 6-3, 6-1.

They've now won six of 13 events they've played since joining forces in March - Indian Wells, Miami, Charleston, Wimbledon, the US Open and now Guangzhou. They're an incredible 42-7 together.

Xu and You had taken out two seeded teams en route to the final - No.3 seeds Liang Chen and Wang Yafan in the quarters and No.2 seeds Klaudia Jans-Ignacik and Anastasia Rodionova in the semis.

Hingis talked about the secret of their success against the young Chinese team in the final.

"Thankfully we watched them play last night so we knew the way they played, how they won, and we were very well prepared to play them today. There were definitely no surprises out there," Hingis said.

"But they had a great tournament. They play very well, very smart, and they have a bright future."

Mirza was asked how she felt about the tournament - the city, the stadium and so on.

"The first time I played here was 2010, when I won the doubles here, but it was in a different venue. It wasn't this one. It was a smaller venue," Mirza recalled. "But I played the Asian Games here in 2010. I won two medals and it was really good here - I liked the courts, I really liked how they played.

"It's really hot, but I'm Indian, so I have to be used to it! It's always great to come back here."

This week coming up they're the No.1 seeds at the Dongfeng Motor Wuhan Open in Wuhan, China.

After a first round bye there, they could play either the aforementioned Jans-Ignacik and Rodionova or Chan Chin-Wei and Arina Rodionova - that's younger sister of Anastasia Rodionova, of course.

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