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In first event after split, Mirza-Hingis to clash in Cincinnati final
The former number one doubles pair of Martina Hingis and Sania Mirza, who split earlier this season, will face off on Sunday in the final of the WTA Tour’s Cincinnati Masters.
The former number one doubles pair of Martina Hingis and Sania Mirza, who split earlier this season, will face off on Sunday in the final of the WTA Tour’s Cincinnati Masters.
Switzerland’s Hingis and new American partner CoCo Vandeweghe booked their spot with a 6-1, 6-4 win over fifth-seeded German Julia Goerges and Sunday’s singles finalist Karolina Pliskova, while seventh-seeded Mirza, of India, teamed with Czech Barbora Strycova for a 6-2, 7-5 win over the second-seeded Taiwan pair of Chan Hao-Ching and Chan Yung-Jan.
Hingis, who combined with Timea Bacsinszky to win silver in the Rio doubles for Switzerland after losing in the final to Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina of Russia, split with India’s top sportswoman after a Toronto quarter-final loss in late July.
Although Mirza-Hingis are no longer together, they will still play the year-end WTA event for which they have qualified in Singapore in October.
The team, which came to be known as “Santina”, started out in 2015 and won their first three tournaments before capturing the 2015 Wimbledon and US Open titles as well as this year’s Australian Open. They achieved 11 WTA titles together.
A 41-match win streak ended in Qatar this year and they lost in the fourth round at Roland Garros and Wimbledon quarter-finals.
Hingis and Vandeweghe actually took to the court together for the first time on Saturday after two walkovers this week at the rain-plagued Cincinnati tournament. Mirza and Strycova have won all four of their matches in straight sets.
