America
Mirza-Hingis win Miami Open doubles title
Miami, April 6
Sania Mirza claimed her 25th
Women's Tennis Association (WTA) doubles title and her second partnering
Martina Hingis by winning the Miami Open trophy 7-5 6-1 against the
Russian pair of Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina here.
The
No.2-seeded Makarova and Vesnina came out strong, storming out to a 5-2
lead, but the No.1-seeded Hingis and Mirza came alive from there,
reeling off eight games in a row - even staving off a set point - to
surge ahead, 7-5, 3-0. They barely looked back to close out the match on
Sunday.
"The most important thing is that we never stopped
believing we're a great team," Hingis said of the early deficit after
winning on Sunday.
"They played a great set to get us to that
position, 5-2 down. Then we just tried to stay in there and get our
chances. We just built on every point, which is what we did well last
week too."
The Swiss-Indian duo talked about how an on-court coaching visit helped them turn it around.
"Today the coaching really turned it around - your dad came on court," Hingis said to Mirza.
"We
just tried to keep telling each other to enjoy the struggle," Mirza
said. "Last week everything came very, very easily to us - we didn't
lose more than four games in a set. Over here we were down, and we were
panicking. It was like, 'Oh my God, we're not playing well.' We just
weren't used to that.
But it's good to fight through those
matches and believe, and come out now and be like, 'At 5-3 I was gutsy
to hit a big serve,' or she made a huge move at 5-4, if that makes
sense. So it's good," Hingis added.