Press Trust of India
Singapore, Oct 27: Top seeds Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis continued their rampaiging form and recorded a straight-set victory in their opening doubles match of the year-ending USD seven million WTA Finals here Monday night.
The Indo-Swiss combine, on a roll with eight tropies already in their cabinet this season, defeated the sixth-seeded American duo of Raquel Kops-Jones and Abigail Spears 6-4, 6-2 in the Red group of the round robin league format on the hard courts of the Singapore Indoor Stadium here.
A break of serve in the opeing set was all what Sania and Martina needed to take the lead. In the second set, Sania and Martina first saved six breakpoints and then broke their American opponents twice to pocket the set and the match.
Sania had won the prestigious tournament last year with Zimbabwean Cara Black. Besides being the top seeds, Sania and Martina are at present individually the two highest ranked players in the world.
Tame ouster
India’s Rohan Bopanna and his Romanian partner Florin Mergea lost to Austria’s Alexander Peya and Brazilian Bruno Soares in the opening round of the men’s doubles event of the Swiss Indoors at Basel, to slump to their second straight first round exit. Bopanna and Mergea lost to Peya and Soares 6-4, 1-6, 8-10 in 62 minutes.