By any standard, Sania Mirza’s is a remarkable achievement that has brought 10 WTA titles to her in 2015. She took the year’s first title with USA’s Bethanie Mattek-Sands by winning the Apia International at Sydney in January. Interestingly, Sania/Mattek-Sands had beaten Hingis/Pennetta at Sydney in the final. Sania’s next 9 titles have come in partnership with Martina Hingis. It is also noteworthy that out of Sania’s 32 WTA career titles, 10 have come in 2015 alone. She is a great player herself but she can’t deny that her 2015 success was effectively leveraged by the hugely talented Martina Hingis. The Swiss, who ruled the singles field more than 15 years ago, also reached a landmark of 50 WTA titles, a feat achieved by 15 women. Martina Navratilova is way ahead of everyone else with 167 WTA titles in her remarkable career, spanning over 25 years.
In the final, Sania/Hingis played dominating tennis against the Spanish pair of Garbine Muguruza and Carla Suarez Navarro. The Indo-Swiss pair dropped serve just once in the match and broke their opponents five times. In completing their 22-match unbeaten streak, Sania/Hingis bageled Muguruza/Suarez Navarro in the first set and continued to dominate in winning at 6-0, 6-3 in just 67 minutes. In what, generally, looked like an exhibition game, the first set was over in a blink. The second, however, showed a semblance of competition but Sania/Hingis didn’t allow their grip to slip away and won the match 6-0, 6-3. Two days ago, Sania and Hingis were named as the best women’s doubles team of the 2015 season. WTA has developed a brand new World No.1 awards to celebrate the 40th anniversary of computerized rankings with trophies for both singles and doubles teams. These iconic new prizes by Dubai Duty Free will be awarded for singles and doubles players, when they first acquire the no.1 status.
Poland’s Agnieszka Radwanska won the biggest title of her tennis career by beating Czech Republic’s Petra Kvitova in WTA singles final. The three-set thriller was lapped up by the social media for its fighting quality. Riding on Kvitova’s error-prone tennis, Radwanska began in a masterly fashion in winning 8 out of the first 10 games and led 6-2, 2-0. When it looked that the Polish woman would end up with a lop-sided victory, Kvitova found her rhythm and produced the full range of shots. She looked like reversing everything in reeling off 8 out of the next 10 games and not only clinched the second set, but led 2-0 in the third. However, Radwanska still had the fire left in her as she broke back to make it 3-all and in another gear-shift, also took the next three games. At the end of it all, the world no.5 Radwanska finished off the no.4-seed Kvitova, 6-2, 4-6, 6-3 and claimed a prized victory.
It was an engaging tennis week at Singapore that the fans enjoyed at the indoor stadium, television and social media. While world no.1 Serena Williams was conspicuous by her absence, return of Maria Sharapova from her long-drawn injury period and her dominance in the round-Robin phase was highly welcome. In the other Group, Garbine Muguruza also played wonderfully in winning all three of her round-Robin games just as Sharapova did. But the Russian and Spaniard crashed out in the semifinals. The eventual finalists; Radwanska and Kvitova, however had a struggling passage before they ended up meeting in the summit clash. The only predictable result came in the final of women’s doubles with Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis dominating over their opponents in almost all their matches.