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Sania Mirza enters maiden Wimbledon final
Wimbledon, 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 the winners of the match between Russian second seeds
Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina and Hungarian-French fourth seeds
Timea Babos and Kristina Mladenovic.
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.