Sydney: India’s Sania Mirza and her Swiss partner Martina Hingis on Thursday broke a 22-year-old world record by winning their 29th women’s doubles match in a row en route to their entry into the women’s doubles final of the WTA Sydney International, here on Thursday.
The World No 1 pair came from behind to beat the pair of Romanian Raluca Olaru and Kazakhstan’s Yaroslava Shvedova 4-6 6-3 10-8 in a closely-fought semi-final.
They now surpassed the pair of Puerto Rican Gigi Fernandez and Belarus’ Natasha Zvereva, who won 28 matches on the trot during their successful pairing back in 1994.
The Indo-Swiss pair have continued their good show from 2015 when they won 9 titles which included the Wimbledon, US Open and the year-ending WTA finals.
The 2016 has also started on a fabulous note as they have now made it to the second straight final, having won the Brisbane International last week. A win in the final will be their 11th WTA title together.
The semi-final on Thursday was a well-contested affair that went on for an hour and 31 minutes.
The two teams traded three breaks each but the Olaru-Shvedova pair broke their opponents for the fourth time to clinch the set by 6-4 margin.
Down by a set, Sania-Martina pair came back strongly break the opposition’s serve twice and also won a whopping 76 percent of points on their first serve as they clinched the set 6-3.
In the super tie-break, both pair did well to hold their service points but Olaru-Shvedova pair had a double fault at a crucial stage which turned the match decisively in favour of Sania-Martina.
PTI
