Sania-Marti enter Miami Open fil

Miami, April 4: Indo-Swiss tennis combine Sania Mirza and Marti Hingis reached their second successive women’s doubles fil when they entered the summit clash of the Miami Open with a straight sets win at the Tennis Center at Crandon Park here.

The top seeds defeated the Hungarian-French pairing of Timea Babos and Kristi Mladenovic 6-2, 6-4 in exactly an hour on Saturday.

Sania and Marti will take on Russian second seeds Ekateri Makarova and Ele Vesni in the fil on Sunday whom they had defeated last month in Indian Wells to win their maiden tourment as a pair.

Though the top seeds served twice the number of double faults, they were better in every other aspect of the game than their seventh seeded opponents.

Crucially, Sania and Marti won five of the available breakpoints to that of two out of 10 chances for Timea and Kristi.

“We’re still learning to play with each other so it’s good to play against a tough team like that. They’re really good,” Sania said.

“We were down a break in the first set so we’re happy we were able to get it back and win the first set 6-2. We’re just happy to be in another fil now.”

Their opponents in the fil — Ekateri and Ele — overcame Czech ninth seeds Andrea Hlavackova and Lucie Hradecka 6-4, 6-2 in the other semifil.

Asked what they would be doing to defeat the Russian girls, Sania quipped, “The same as we did last week! We just have to keep focused and fight for every point. I keep saying this — mes don’t win you matches, neither does any result. Every day is a different day.” IANS