'It's been a great year for us': Sania Mirza, Martina Hingis crowned US Open champions

New York: Women’s doubles top seeds Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis defeated fourth seeded Casey Dellacqua and Yaroslava Shvedova 6-3, 6-3 here on Sunday to claim the US Open title. 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 and 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). [caption id=“attachment_2432264” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Martina Hingis, of Switzerland, left, and Sania Mirza, of India, celebrate with the US open trophy. AP[/caption] 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 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 won 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 her fifth Grand Slam title this year, and 20th of her career across all three disciplines (five singles, 11 doubles and four mixed doubles). The Swiss now just the third active player to have 20 major trophies (after Serena Willams’ 36 and Venus Williams’ 22). 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-Martina though 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 they were made to wait for the win as Dellacqua-Shvedova converted their second break point to put up a resistance and reduce the margin to 3-5. But that only delayed the inevitable as Martina put away a volley at the net to seal the fate of the match, with the pair clinching 62 of the total 108 points played. Sania and Martina entered the title round easing past Italian 11th seeds Sara Errani and Flavia Pennetta 6-4, 6-1. Dellacqua-Shvedova defeated unseeded German-American pair of Anna-Lena Groenefeld and Coco Vandeweghe 6-7 (3), 7-5, 7-5 to reach the final. “It has been a great year for us,” Sania said after the win. “To win Wimbledon was a great year. Then to come back and back it up to win the US Open, we feel like we’re a really solid team. And we came through again today.” “From the start, we hit it off,” Martina said. “Our games work well together.” IANS