New York: Women’s doubles top seeds Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis defeated fourth seeded Casey Dellacqua and Yaroslava Shvedova 6-3, 6-3 to claim the US Open title here on Sunday.
The Indo-Swiss pair took only 69 minutes to conquer the Australian-Kazakh pair at the Arthur Ashe stadium.
It was Sania and Martina’s second women’s doubles Grand Slam title together after winning the Wimbledon earlier this year.
They played with supreme confidence to win the tournament without dropping a set. It was Sania’s fifth success at the Majors (two women’s doubles and three mixed doubles crowns).
Sania’s partnership with Martina has helped her become the first Indian women’s player to be ranked World No.1 in the doubles rankings.
Sunday’s final was Sania’s first in the category here at the US Open. She won the mixed doubles title last year with Brazilian Bruno Soares here.
For Martina, the tournament turned out to be a memorable win as she lifted her second trophy at the Flushing Meadows this year on Sunday, after bagging the mixed doubles crown on Friday with another Indian, Leander Paes. It was also the Swiss player’s fifth Grand Slam title this year.
On Sunday, the top seeds quickly jumped to a 3-1 lead breaking the second service game of their opponents.
But the fourth seeds immediately broke Sania’s serve to make it 2-3.
Sania and Martina remained undeterred to bring about the third and fourth successive service breaks to extend their advantage to 5-2.
Sania then served out the first set at 6-3 in only 31 minutes. They hit 16 winners — four more than their opponents — to claim the first set, converting three of the eight break points. Dellacqua-Shvedova could only break their opponents once.
The reigning Wimbledon champions continued their dominant return of serves in the second set and broke their opponents to take an early 2-0 lead.
As the match went on, the top seeds grew more confident and started unleashing terrific ground strokes, both cross court and down the line, to march towards victory.
But the dynamic duo were made to wait for the win as Dellacqua-Shvedova converted their second break point to reduce the margin 3-5. (IANS)
