Dubai: Former world number one Martina Hingis is hopeful her success in the Grand Slams will enable her to win more doubles titles in the latest phase of her career.
Winner of the inaugural singles crown in Dubai in 2001, Hingis and partner Flavia Pennetta were knocked out of the 2015 doubles event by the Rodionova sisters, Anastasia and Arina, 6-3, 7-6 (2) in their third round match on Wednesday.
However, last month the ‘Swiss Miss’ had teamed up with Indian Leander Paes to win the Australian Open final 6-4, 6-3 over Daniel Nestor and Kristina Mladenovic — giving her a 16th Grand Slam title, of which five are singles.
Though she has nine women’s doubles Slam victories and another two mixed crowns, Hingis is yet to taste success at a regular tournament since coming out of retirement in 2013.
Hingis, now 34, said: “It feels great obviously to have won another Grand Slam title and now I’m wishing for that success to continue into women’s doubles. Unfortunately it didn’t happen here in Dubai this week, but we’ll work through it. That’s the nice thing about tennis — there’s always next week.”
The Swiss star returned to playing women’s doubles with Sabine Lisicki, whom she also coached briefly in 2014, before switching partners to Pennetta, with whom she narrowly missed qualifying to the year-end WTA Tour Finals in Singapore last year.
“I think we finished last year really well. We played US Open finals, won two tournaments after that, so you definitely have hopes that you’re going to play well. But the year is still long and we haven’t started that well, so we have to take it one tournament at a time and we will see,” Hingis said.
