Sania clinches Miami Open title with Hingis, inches closer to World No 1 rank
Miami: Sania Mirza achieved yet another career milestone by capturing her 25th WTA doubles title as the Indian ace continued her dream start with Martina Hingis to win the Miami Open trophy, here Sunday.
Champions in Miami title number 25 #thankful #2outof2 #2inarow #silverjubilee pic.twitter.com/ftvUOiJRMZ
— Sania Mirza (@MirzaSania) April 6, 2015The top seeded Indo-Swiss pair overcame a sluggish start to take the title with a 7-5 6-1 scoreline against second seeded Russian team of Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina.
.@MHingis & @MirzaSania win @MiamiOpenTennis! Complete Indian Wells/Miami double--> http://t.co/Twp1YYrBoc #WTA pic.twitter.com/6mEPZwzFcp
— WTA (@WTA) April 6, 2015Sania and Hingis were trailing 2-5 in the opening set but regrouped and turned the tables on their fierce opponents by reeling off eight games in a row.
They had the beaten the same Russian team to win the Indian Wells to win their first title together.
It has been an absolute dream start for Sania and Hingis as they are yet to lose a set since they began their partnership.
"We just tried to keep telling each other to enjoy the struggle. 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," Sania said after the match.
Hingis credited the win to tips provided by Sania's farther Imran Mirza during the match.
"Today the coaching really turned it around - your dad came on court," Hingis said to Sania.
"The most important thing is that we never stopped believing we're a great team. 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 great, who now has 43 doubles title, said.
With this win, Sania and Hingis now will move to number three from nine in the Road To Singapore doubles leaderboard. In individual doubles rankings, Sania is now only 145 points away from becoming world number one.
Sania posted a picture, thanking all her fans for their support.
A quick Indian dinner celebration followed by a lovely cake from the restaurant before we head to our next tournament early tomm morning thank u all for ur love and support .. I love you all so very much
Posted by Sania Mirza on Sunday, 5 April 2015
Sania moves closer to World No 1 ranking:
Sania Mirza took a giant leap towards becoming world number one player in the doubles by pocketing 1000 ranking points, following her stupendous title win in the Miami Open with partner Martina Hingis.
Sania's ranking remained at number three but she closed the gap to just 145 points with the world number one Italians Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci, who both have 7640 points each.
With her second title in a row with Martina, Sania now sits at number three with 7495 points.
Now Sania needs to win the Family Circle Cup, beginning this week in Charleston, where she and Martina are top seeds.
But the tournament is being played on green clay and Sania with her partner go into the event without practice on this surface, which is little faster than red clay. Nevertheless, Sania had won a title at Charleston in 2011 with Elena Vesnina.
Meanwhile, in the WTA singles rankings, Ankita Raina gained a place to be at number 252.
In the ATP rankings, Somdev Devvarman continues to be India's top singles player at number 171, a gain of five places. Ramkumar Ramanathan was the next best at number 233.
He jumped 14 spots on the ladder and was followed by Yuki Bhambri (251), who climbed six places up.
In the doubles, Leander Paes was highest-ranked player at number 23 and was followed by Rohan Bopanna (24). Both the players gained two places each.
