Agencies
LONDON, JULY 10
Indian tennis ace Sania Mirza entered her maiden final at the prestigious Wimbledon with Swiss partner Martina Hingis by earning a straight sets victory in the women's doubles semifinals at the All England Club here on Friday.
The top seeds needed only 56 minutes to overcome American fifth seeds Raquel Kops-Jones and Abigail Spears 6-1, 6-2 in their semifinal match on No.1 Court to enter the summit clash.
This is Sania's first final here across all formats in seniors though she had won the girls' doubles title here 12 years ago with Russian Alisa Kleybanova. Martina, on the other hand, has two doubles (1996, 1998) and one singles title (1997) to her credit that she won at the lone grass court Major.
Though the World No.1 Indian has three mixed doubles Grand Slam titles, she is yet to win the top prize in women's doubles. The only time she reached a Major final in the category was at the 2011 French Open.
The top seeds totally dominated both the sets.In the first one, they broke their opponents twice out of four opportunities which was more than enough to seal the set in their favour. Though they gave three breakpoint chances to Raquel and Abigail, they managed to save all three. Also, they dominated by taking 30 of the 46 points played in the set.
The fifth seeds were already rattled by now which led to double fault thrice at crucial moments in the second set. Sania and Martina got two chances to break Raquel and Abigail and utilised both perfectly to clinch the set and match. They were so clinical that they did not even give a breakpoint opportunity to their opponents.
The world's two highest ranked players will next take on Russian second seeds Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina.
Earlier in the day, another Indian Sumit Nagal, partnering Vietnam's Nam Hoang Ly, earned a straight sets victory to enter the boys's doubles semifinals.
The eighth seeds needed only 53 minutes to defeat Japanese combination of Yusuke Takahashi and Jumpei Yamasaki 6-2, 6-3 on Court 6. Nagal and Ly will next take on Serbian-Norwegian pair of Miomir Kecmanovic and Casper Ruud for a place in the final.
