Full Circle For Santina: Co-No.1s Martina Hingis and Sania Mirza paired up for the very first time at last year’s BNP Paribas Open, winning the event and prompting a 15-match winning streak through Miami and Charleston. The summer following their first Grand Slam victory at Wimbledon proved even more fruitful, taking Santina on a 41-match win streak that included nine titles and two more majors at the US Open and Australian Open.
That incredible run came to an end in the quarterfinals of the Qatar Total Open, three matches shy of tying the longest winning streak since 1990 – when Jana Novotna and Helena Sukova won 44 matches in a row – forcing Hingis and Mirza to celebrate their one year anniversary on a decidedly unexpected one-match losing streak.
Turning that around won’t be an easy ask for the best team in the world; in a jam-packed draw, Santina are set to play a first round against Casey Dellacqua – the current World No.4 who reached the US Open final with Yaroslava Shvedova – and former No.1 Samantha Stosur. Also in their section are Elena Vesnina and Daria Kasatkina, the very team who beat them in Doha.
But bear in mind: Hingis and Mirza haven’t done a whole lot of losing in the last 12 months; should they pass these early hurdles, they could easily catch fire once more and capture their fifth title of 2016.
Olympic Fever: Dellacqua/Stosur and Vesnina/Kasatkina aren’t the only mono-country pairings to form this season, as half of the Indian Wells doubles field is comprised of women playing with their compatriots.
Four of them – No.4 seeds Andrea Hlavackova and Lucie Hradecka, No.7 seeds Garbiñe Muguruza and Carla Suárez Navarro, No.8 seeds Raquel Atawo (née Kops-Jones) and Abigail Spears, and No.2 seeds Chan Hao-Ching and Chan Yung-Jan – qualified for BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global just a few months ago.
The Czechs have the most experience under their belts, including two Grand Slams and an Olympic silver medal, while the Spaniards finished runner-up to Hingis and Mirza in Singapore, and the Americans played some of their best tennis in 2015. The Chan sisters were the story of the second half of the season, and reversed a slow start with back-to-back titles in Taiwan and Doha.
No.6 seeds Caroline Garcia and Kristina Mladenovic were both in Singapore with other partners – Katarina Srebotnik and Timea Babos, respectively – but teamed up to start the season with the Olympics in mind. The two have already reached two finals in Sydney and Doha – beating the Chans and pushing Santina to a match tie-break in the former.
A trio of potential Olympic pairs remain unseeded and looming in the California desert. Anabel Medina Garrigues and Arantxa Parra Santonja came together on a more permanent basis last summer, and have been bastions of consistency throughout 2016. Making the semifinals or better at seven of their last eight events, the Spaniards – who open against Mladenovic and Garcia – swept the Central American swing with titles in Acapulco and Monterrey.
By contrast, wildcards Andrea Petkovic and reigning Australian Open champion Angelique Kerber are playing just their second tournament together and will have to hit the ground running against the Chans, but they may yet build on their reputation as the “best worst team ever,” one that took them into the finals of the Brisbane International.
Bethanie Mattek-Sands has been in search of a consistent partner since injuries and illness felled partner and co-Australian and French Open champion, Lucie Safarova. The Czech is back in action at Indian Wells, but instead playing with Ekaterina Makarova – Vesnina’s former partner. Mattek-Sands began the year alongside Sabine Lisicki and Yaroslava Shvedova, but is revisiting a successful Fed Cup partnership with CoCo Vandeweghe; the Americans won their doubles rubber against Poland’s Paula Kania and Klaudia Jans-Ignacik in straight sets.
Equal and Opposite: With 2015 partners Dellacqua and Mladenovic chasing after Olympic glory, Shevedova and Babos have decided to team up for the time being. Babos had enjoyed success with Julia Goerges in the Middle East, but after opting out of her original arrangement with Katarina Srebotnik, the Hungarian youngster admitted it was tough to find a consistent partner at this point in the season.
“I still have big goals in doubles, and we had a goal with Kata,” she told WTA Insider in Monterrey, “But after two tournaments, we realized it wouldn’t be so easy to make it, and our games weren’t matching so well. After Australia, I tried to find someone who I could play with every week, but it’s not easy to find someone who is still free and can be a good partner when the season’s already started.”
Comeback Kids: Peng Shuai began her wade back into the competitive pool in Australia, playing doubles in her first tournaments since a back enjury ended her 2015 season at the French Open. Making her highly-anticipated singles return at the BNP Paribas Open, Peng is also reforming her most successful partnership by reuniting with Hsieh Su-Wei.
The former No.1s burst onto the scene nearly three years ago with wins at Wimbledon, the French Open, and the WTA Finals. Unseeded in the Mladenovic/Garcia section, Peng and Hsieh drew Sara Errani and Oksana Kalashnikova – Hsieh’s most recent partner. Errani is coming off of a solid Middle East Swing, reaching the finals of Doha with Suárez Navarro.
Elsewhere in the draw is Galina Voskoboeva, who made her WTA return at the Abierto Mexicano Telcel in doubles with Anastasia Rodionova. Winning one match before losing in a valiant effort to Hobart International champions Christina McHale and Han Xinyun, Voskoboeva had been off the tour for almost two years and has solid history with the Aussie, reaching the semifinals of the Rogers Cup back in 2012. Their tournament begins with a first round encounter with Kasatkina and Vesnina.
Finally, Vania King is back at Indian Wells for the first time since 2014 – when she played, oddly enough, with Voskoboeva. Using her protected ranking, King is coming off of a run to the quarterfinals of the Australian Open with Alla Kudryavtseva, where they earned consecutive upsets over Shvedova and Stosur and Vesnina and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. In the Santina section of the draw, King and Kudryavtseva will play their first round against Anna-Lena Groenefeld and Barbora Strycova.
All photos courtesy of the St. Petersburg Ladies Trophy and Getty Images.
