Team SanTina marks 29th win in a row
World No.1 women's doubles team Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis marked a record-breaking 29th win in a row as they beat Yaroslava Shevedova and Raluca Olaru to progress to the WTA Sydney International Women's Doubles Final. In a well contested semi-final, team SanTina, as they are popularly called, won 4-6, 6-3, 10-8. A win in the final would mark their 11th WTA title together.
Born on 15 November 1986, Sania Mirza turned pro in 2003. Mirza holds 2 Grandslam Women's Doubles titles and 3 Mixed Doubles titles. In her WTA career, Sania Mirza has a terrific record holding 33 Doubles titles and 1 Singles title. In 2015, she became the first Indian woman to be World No.1, when her partnership with Martina Hingis was ranked so by WTA.
Born on 30 September 1980, Swiss national Martina Hingis turned pro in 1994. She holds 20 Grand Slam titles - 5 Singles, 11 Doubles, and 4 Mixed Doubles. In her WTA career, Hingis a total of 95 titles - 43 Singles, 51 Doubles, and 1 Team Competition title with Roger Federer. According to Forbes magazine, Hingis was the highest paid female athlete from 1997-2001.
The partnership between India's Sania Mirza and Swiss ace Martina Hingis started in 2015 and has prospered ever since. The pair went on to win 9 WTA titles in 2015 - Indian Wells, Miami, Charleston, Wimbledon, US Open, Guangzhou, Wuhan, Beijing and WTA Finals. 2016 saw no change in the pair's form as they secured their 10th title, the Brisbane International, on 9 January.
Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis' win in the WTA Sydney International semi-final saw the pair break a 22-year old record. They surpassed the pair of Gigi Fernandez and Natasha Zvereva, who won 28 matches in a row during their partnership in 1994. However, the world record, a winning streak of 109 matches, held by Martina Navratilova and Pam Shirver, is still far away.
Although the world record of 109 wins in a row is still very far away, the next record Mirza and Hingis could break is a 44 match win streak, set by Jana Novotna and Helena Sukova in 1990.
