Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis started the New Year on a brilliant note by clinching the Brisbane International women’s doubles title at the Queensland Tennis Centre here on Saturday.
The top seeded pair took just an hour and 10 minutes to beat German wildcards of Angelique Kerber, who lost the women's singles final earlier in the day to Victoria Azarenka of Belarus, and Andrea Petkovic 7-5, 6-1 at the Pat Rafter Arena.
This is the Indian/Swiss pair's 26th win in a row and the first title of 2016. They have now won six titles on the trot – the longest winning streak in the category since 1994 when Gigi Fernandez and Natasha Zvereva won 28 consecutively.
Hingis and Mirza celebrate with the trophy.
This was 29-year-old Mirza's second victory here after partnering American Bethanie Mattek-Sands to the title in 2013, while Hingis won the 2015 crown with German Sabine Lisicki.
The world's top ranked pair started well by breaking their opponents in the second game to go 2-0 up. But the wild card pair fought well and broke twice to take a 4-2 lead.
The first set turned out to be a topsy-turvy affair with both pairs regularly failing to hold on to their service games. However, Mirza and Hingis first levelled the score at four-all and then won on their serve to take a 5-4 lead.
Serving at 5-6 down and trying to push the set into the tie-breaker, Kerber and Petkovic failed to do so with the top seeds taking the set in 46 minutes.
Unlike the vigorously-fought first set, the second one turned out to be more or less a walkover with Mirza and Hingis racing away to a 5-0 lead.
The German women managed to win the sixth game on their serve but it was a little too late as Mirza and Hingis clinched the set 6-1 and took the title.
