Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis win Australian Open 2016
The top seeded Indo-Swiss pair of Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis have won the Australian Open, beating the Czech pair of Andrea Hlavackova and Lucie Hradecka in straight sets – 7-6, 6-3 to take their third consecutive Grand Slam title.
The two won Wimbledon and the US Open last year after coming together, and with their title victory at Melbourne Park took their 36th straight victory.
Following a mammoth 2015 that saw them win a number of titles in addition to their two slams, Mirza and Hingis started off 2016 just as successfully, winning the title at the Brisbane International in early January, following which they also took the title at the Apia International in Sydney.
The match saw a relatively shaky start from the Indo-Swiss pair, with a mammoth eight breaks of serve in the set, which looked set to go either way. The top seeds played an error-strewn game, with 17 in the first set alone, while their Czech rivals started off with relatively fewer, but caught them up by the end of the set with 16 to their credit.
That set went to a tiebreak, with Hingis and Mirza dominating utterly to win it 7-1.
After somewhat of a struggle in the first set, the two came back resoundingly in the second, reining in their unforced error count as Hingis displayed her immense athleticism and Mirza her precision of serve.
The breaks of serve continued in the second set as well, with Hingis and Mirza taking their rivals to break point 8 times – managing to successfully capitalise on 4 occasions.
Today’s victory marked Mirza’s third career Grand Slam in the doubles, and the 12th of Hingis’ career and 5th in Australia.