Doubles domination: Sania-Martina steamroll into Australian Open finals with 35th consecutive win

Melbourne: Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis made mincemeat of their semifinal opponents, Julia Georges and Karlolina Pliskova at the Rod Laver Arena to win their Australian Open semifinals with ease. This is the Indo-Swiss duo’s 35th win on the trot, as the pair haven’t lost a single match since last August. However, Rohan Bopanna’s campaign ended with a shock defeat in the mixed doubles quarterfinals with partner Yung-Jan Chan of Chinese Taipei. [caption id=“attachment_2600778” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis in action at the Australian Open. Getty[/caption] Sania and Martina, who are on a record winning streak, continued to rule the roost as they brushed aside Julia Goerges and Karolina Pliskova, the 13th seeds, 6-1 6-0 in just 54 minutes at Rod Laver Arena to enter their third successive doubles Grand Slam final. They will face seventh seeds Andrea Hlaváčková and Lucie Hradecka who defeated the Y. Xu and S. Zheng in three sets. Sania and Martina broke their rivals twice in the first set, which lasted 26 minutes, before steamrolling the German-Czech combo in the second set. Mirza and Hingis won 10 WTA doubles titles together in 2015 including two Grand Slams and the coveted year-end WTA championship, and are currently the number one team in women’s doubles, a feat made even more remarkable by the fact that the duo started playing together less than a year ago. The Indo-Swiss duo won the Wimbledon and US Open titles, before winning the season ending WTA Finals in 2015. They continued their superb form this year, extending their unbeaten run to 35 with today’s semi-final win. They have also won back-to-back titles at the Brisbane and Sydney International events, before starting their Australian Open campaign. This is also the longest winning streak in women’s double since 1994, set by Puerto Rican Gigi Fernandez and Belarus’ Natasha Zvereva, who won 15 Grand Slams together. The all-time record of 109 consecutive wins is held by Martina Navratilova and Pam Shirver, one of the greatest all-time doubles pairing. The next record for Mirza and Hingis to chase is the one set by Jana Novotna and Helena Sukova in 1990, when they won 44 matches in a row. Earlier, the third seed Bopanna and Chan lost 2-6 5-7 to unseeded combination of Slovenia’s Andreja Klepac and Philippines’ Treat Huey in just 55 minutes at Show Court 2. The Indo-Taipei team squandered four break chances in the match, including three in the second set, to bow out of the tournament. Meanwhile, Indian challenge ended in the junior girls event with the defeat of Karman Kaur Thandi and Pranjala Yadlapalli in both singles and doubles. In the singles, Karman lost 6-3 5-7 5-7 to Sara Tomic of Australia in the third round while 10th-seeded Pranjala bowed out after a 5-7 5-7 defeat against 8th-seeded Russian Anastasia Potapova. Later in the doubles, the fifth seeded duo of Karman and Pranjala lost 6-7(3) 5-7 to the Australian pair of Maddison Inglis and Jaimee Fourlis. In the previous round, Sania and Swiss great Martina Hingis, seeded no one, survived a mid-match slump to beat the 12th seeded German-American combine of Anna-Lena Groenefeld and Coco Vandeweghe 6-2 4-6 6-1. With PTI inputs