Sania’s Sixth Success in Six Months with Switzerland’s Hingis as Her Doubles Partner

Since they began playing together in March 2015, India’s Sania Mirza and Switzerland’s Martina Hingis have won their sixth WTA title together on Saturday, September 26, 2015. The Indo-Swiss pair defeated China’s Shilin Xu and Xiodi You in the final of the 2015 Guangzhou International Women’s Open tournament in China. The dream-like run of Sania/Hingis has continued since their first title in the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells in March 2015. The title kitty of Sania and Hingis also includes two back to back Grand Slam crowns at Wimbledon and the recently concluded US Open at Flushing Meadows, New York. The pair had earlier bagged titles at Miami and Charleston Opens. In 13 events, where Sania and Hingis have participated since joining together, their win-loss record has been an impressive 42-7 and they are already WTA’s top ranked women’s pair in the world.

In the Guangzhou International women’s Open, top seeded Sania/Hingis had a first round bye and their first match was the quarterfinal, in which they defeated the German/Romanian pair of Anna-Lena Friedsam/Monica Niculescu 6-2, 6-3. Sania/Hingis then had their semifinal against Israel’s Julia Glushko and Sweden’s Rebecca Peterson. On a hot Friday, the reigning Wimbledon and US Open champions played strongly against the Israeli/Swedish combo and broke their opponents’ service five times before beating them 6-3, 6-4 in just over an hour.

In the final, Sania/Hingis faced China’s Shilin Xu/Xiodi You. The Chinese pair had entered the final after upsetting the no. 2 seeds Anastasia Rodionova of Australia/Klaudia Jans-Ignacik of Poland. In the summit clash, Sania/Hingis played a dominating game against Shilin Xu/Xiaodi and clinched the title with an easy 6-3, 6-1 victory.

The women’s singles title at Guangzhou Open was clinched by Serbia’s Jelena Jankovic, who defeated Czech Republic’s Denisa Allertova in straight sets. In a tournament that saw heavy upsets, the no.4 seed Jankovic was the lone seeded player left. Her opponent for the title clash was a woman, who pulled off the biggest upset of the tournament by knocking out top seed Simona Halep in the quarterfinals. The 22-year old Czech woman registered a stunning straight sets 6-4, 6-3 victory over world no.2 Halep on Thursday. After going up 5-4 in the first set, Allertova won six of the next seven games for a 5-1 lead in the second set and then closed out the match with a backhand winner. Allertova reached the final by causing another upset, when she defeated no.3 seed Sara Errani of Italy 7-5, 6-2 in the semifinal. On the other side, Jankovic had a tougher opponent in her semifinal match. Belgium’s 25-year old Yanina Wickmayer stretched Jankovic to three sets, before the Serbian came through with a 6-3, 2-6, 7-5 victory.

In the championship match, Allertova began with a 2-1 lead in the first set but those two were the only points that the Czech woman could eventually take. The Serbian took powerful control of the match by winning 11 games in a row and finished with an ace on her last serve to register a 6-2, 6-0 victory.