It was another great day for fans in South Florida as their countrymen and woman swept both titles on offer on sunshine Saturday. While Serena Williams carried on her blazing start of the 2015 season to defeat Spain’s Carla Suarez Navarro to win the Miami crown for the eighth time, Bob and Mike Bryan captured their fourth title after they scored a fighting victory against their young rivals Jack Sock and Vasek Pospisil. The irrepressible Serena is now 11-0 in her last 11 finals and the top-seeded Bryan twins extracted their revenge of their quarterfinal loss two weeks ago against the American/Canadian duo at Indian Wells. The three Americans wrote their own scripts in tennis history over the eventful week at Miami, when Serena recorded her 700th WTA match in the quarterfinals and Saturday’s final against Navarro was an icing on the cake for the world’s best tennis player, who hasn’t lost any match in 2015. Her only setback was an injury-ridden pull-out from the Indian Wells semifinals against Simona Halep. As for the Bryans, their success on Saturday marked the 33rd ATP World Tour Masters 1000 crown and 105th title as a team. The Crandon Park crowd couldn’t have asked for more!
The women’s singles final at 2015 Miami Masters turned out to be a grossly one-sided affair but the viewers didn’t care as someone of their own was making it so. After taking three sets each to win against Sabine Lisiscki in the quarterfinal and also against Simona Halep in the semis, Serena was a different player in the final. All that the champion needed were 56 minutes against Navarro. There was a brief time in the first set, when Navarro came close to matching Serena, when she tied 2-2 against the champion and had a break opportunity. But Serena came with two consecutive aces and stormed ahead with a 3-2 lead. From this point onwards, the match became a one-way traffic as Navarro couldn’t win another point as she lost 2-6, 0-6 to hand over the win to the world no.1. Serena’s first-set winners had an amazing count of 17. With the Spaniard losing steam, Serena ran through the second set with utmost ease.
At 33, Serena is constantly defying expectations of a slowdown that makes it dangerous to bet against her. To the credit of the disappointed Spaniard, her progress through the tournament was commendable. The 26-year old Navarro won her matches against several higher ranked players like; Alize Cornet, Agnieszka Radwanska, Venus Williams and Andrea Petkovic before the Serena blitz deflated her.
The men’s doubles final proved to be a big classic and it provided the Miami fans a lot to cheer about. The fabulous Bryan brothers; Bob and Mike, played a fighting match against the youthful combo of American Jack Sock and Canadian Vasek Pospisil and emerged victorious at 6-3, 1-6, 10-8. The Bryans got out to a quick start, losing just one point on their serve in the entire first set. But after the pressure they built up, the momentum shifted to the other side in the second set and Sock and Pospisil dictated terms to outplay the Bryans 6-1. Once the contest rolled over to the Match Tie-break, it looked as if the Bryans were on course for the title as they first led 7-2 and carried that lead to 8-4. Out of nowhere, Sock and Pospisil froze the brothers and brought the score to 8-8. But the Bryans recomposed themselves and found the two vital points. That finished everything as the Californian twins made another victory celebration with their trademark chest-bumps. It was the fourth title for the twins in Miami and they are the only team in the Open Era to win at least five titles for 13 straight years and to win more than 900 matches. They are also the only team to win each Grand Slam title at least twice and all-time team leaders with 16 majors that include 6 wins at Australian Open, 2 at the French 3 at Wimbledon and 5 in the US Open.
