COLLEGE PARK (USA): Sania Mirza won her third WTA doubles title of the season and 12th overall as she and Yaroslava Shvedova pipped Olga Govortsova of Belarus and Alla Kudryavtseva of Russia in the final of the Citi Open.
Defending their top billing, the Indo-Kazakh pair overcame their second seed opponents 6-3, 6-3 after one hour and five minutes struggle.
Sania paired with Yaroslava for this tournament since her regular Tour partner Elena Vesnina decided to skip the event.
She had triumphed at Indian Wells and Charleston with Vesnina and fell in the final of the French Open.
Sania and Yaroslova provided umpteen opportunities to their rivals but prevented damage by saving eight break chances in the second set.
The winners shared $11,000 and earned 280 ranking points each.
Sania, Somdev go down in singles ranking
Meanwhile, after making a first round exit in their respective events last week, India’s top singles players – Sania Mirza and Somdev Devvarman – lost a few rungs in the WTA and ATP ranking charts, released on Monday.
Sania lost two places to be at 64 while Somdev suffered a loss of three positions to find himself at 65.
Somdev though made a huge jump of 61 places to get to career-best 189th place in the doubles chart. Other doubles specialists – Mahesh Bhupathi (5), Leander Paes (8) and Rohan Bopanna (10) also had no change in their rankings. (PTI)