Singapore :Top seeds Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis defeated Czech pair of Andrea Hlavackova and Lucie Hradecka in straight sets to virtually seal a women’s doubles semifinal spot in the WTA Tennis Finals here today.
The Indo-Swiss combine beat the Czech seventh seeds 6-3, 6-4 in an hour and 17 minutes at the Singapore Indoor Stadium.
This was their second consecutive win in the red group of the USD 7 million event. Sania and Hingis had beaten sixth seeded American duo of Raquel Kops-Jones and Abigail Spears 6-4 6-2 in their opening group match on Monday.
Sania, who won the prestigious tournament last year with Zimbabwe’s Cara Black, and Martina got off to a great start by breaking the Czechs in only the second game of the match. They again broke Andrea and Lucie in the sixth game to take a 5-1 lead before taking the first set easily in 33 minutes.
The reigning Wimbledon and US Open champion Indo-Swiss pair was broken once in the second set. But they made amends by breaking the Czechs’ serve twice more to easily wrap up the contest.
The WTA Finals is an annual event participated by the top-8 players/pairs of the year who are divided into two round robin groups—red and white. Top two from each group progress to the semifinals, followed by the finals.
PTI