Sania-Zheng pair lifts New Haven title

New Haven: Indian tennis ace Sania Mirza notched up her third title of the season and 17th overall as she lifted the women`s doubles trophy at the WTA New Haven Open along with new partner Jie Zheng here.

Playing just their fourth event together, third seeds Sania and Jie pipped the second-seeded pair of Anabel Medina Garrigues and Katarina Srebotnik 6-3, 6-4 in the summit clash. Mirza and Zheng fell behind an early break but quickly got back and from 3-3 in the first set, they won six of the next seven games to capture the first set and take control of the second. They did have a bit of trouble closing it out, as at 5-2 in the second set, Medina and Srebotnik won two games in a row and then got to deuce on Mirza`s serve before the Indo-Chinese duo finished off the triumph on their fifth match point. "We didn`t start the tournament too well, winning a couple of what you might call ugly matches," Mirza said. "But we kept getting better with each match. It was great to play our best match in the final. "It`s tough with this format. It`s relentless. There`s really no margin of error with the deuce points, the super tie-break. It`s just a toss-up sometimes. Even today`s match was 63 64, but it was much tighter with the deuce points. The last set we won three deuce games." It was Sania`s fourth final of the year and 25th overall. Sania, the only Indian woman to win a Grand Slam title, had won two titles this season before this triumph. Both the previous titles came with American partner Bethanie Mattek-Sands. PTI