Santina Feeling The Heat: Co-No.1s Martina Hingis and Sania Mirza were largely in cruise control to start the 2016 season; winning four straight titles in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne at the Australian Open, and St. Petersburg, the most dominant team of the last five years rode a 41-match winning streak into the quarterfinals fo the Qatar Total Open, where they found themselves stunned by Elena Vesnina and Daria Kasatkina in a match tie-break.
Since then, the pair hoping to capture a fourth straight Grand Slam tournament – a Santina Slam – at the French Open haven’t won a title since – their longest drought since last spring, when they went five tournaments without a win before capturing their first major title at Wimbledon.
Red clay was always going to be the toughest ask for the top ranked team on the Road to Singapore Standings, as it is the only surface on which the pair has yet to win – but the two came close just two weeks ago in Stuttgart – where they reached the final. In an ironic twist, they found themselves out-gutted by Caroline Garcia and Kristina Mladenovic, a team undefeated on clay and riding their own winning streak with back-to-back titles at the Volvo Car Open and Porsche Tennis Grand Prix.
With a bye into the second round of the Mutua Madrid Open, Hingis and Mirza could soon face a rematch of the Australian Open final as No.6 seeds Lucie Hradecka and Andrea Hlavackova, who won last week’s J&T Banka Prague Open title with Margarita Gasparyan.
The “Caroki” Streak?: Speaking of Garcia and Mladenovic, the team who paired up in January ahead of the Olympic Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro has won their last 10 matches – including a decisive Fed Cup rubber over the Netherlands and a first round win in Madrid over Anna-Lena Groenefeld and CoCo Vandeweghe. The young Frenchwomen started the year with two finals in Sydney and Dubai, but have gone from strength to strength since the tour turned to clay – not only taking out Santina in Stuttgart, but also reigning Miami Open and French Open champions Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Lucie Safarova in the finals of Charleston.
In a two-part interview with The Tennis Island, the pair proved that they bring as much energy off the court as they do on, embracing the looming pressure of playing in front of their home crowd in Roland Garros and employing tactics they hope translate into their singles games. Up to No.4 on the Road to Singapore Standings and the No.5 seeds in Madrid, Garcia and Mladenovic next play Australian Open semifinalists Xu Yi-Fan and Zheng Saisai, who reached the second round when Laura Siegemund and Daria Kasatkina were forced to retire due to the former’s illness.
Bucie or Bust: The only player representing two teams on the Road to Singapore Standings, Mattek-Sands is playing some of the best doubles of her career, winning the Indian Wells/Miami “Sunshine Double” with two different partners in Vandeweghe (No.11) and regular partner, Lucie Safarova (No.8). With a run to the Charleston final under their belts, the American/Czech duo will make their red clay debut in Madrid as the former couldn’t play Stuttgart; she was a little busy, after all, helping to lead the United States to a stunning upset victory over Australia in Fed Cup.
With all the talk about Hingis and Mirza, it’s easy to forget that the first half of 2015 belonged to Team Bucie, who were half way to the Calendar Year Grand Slam following back-to-back major victories at the Australian Open and French Open. They went on to capture their last title of the season at the Rogers Cup in Toronto before injury and illness derailed Safarova’s season, ultimately falling in the round robin stage of the BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global.
Semifinalists in Madrid one year ago, Mattek-Sands and Safarova earned the first of their two wins over Santina at the Caja Magica, repeating the feat a few weeks later in Paris en route to the title. The pair have a bye in the second round, but a recently reunited team looms in the quarterfinals…
Together Again: Ekaterina Makarova hadn’t played with Elena Vesnina since last summer, when a leg injury curtailed a season that had started so brightly for the Russian veterans. Leading 5-2 in the deciding set of the Wimbledon final, the 2013 French Open and 2014 US Open champions were not only a game away from denying Hingis and Mirza of their first Grand Slam title, but were also incredibly close to grabbing the third leg of a Career Grand Slam.
It was not to be, and as Hingis and Mirza went on their historic run through the rest of the season, Vesnina began to find success with young compatriot, Daria Kasatkina. With the fast-rising teenager, Vesnina got her revenge on Santina in Doha, ending their streak en route to the semifinals.
But as she told WTA Insider earlier this week, the plan was always to reunite with her partner of the last four years, especially with the Olympics in mind. In fact, Makarova and Vesnina played their first WTA tournament together here in Madrid four years ago, where they reached the final.
Hometown Glory: Singapore finalists and Top 2 Spaniards Carla Suárez Navarro and Garbiñe Muguruza joined Garcia and Mladenovic in the second round with a 6-4, 7-6(4) win over Gabriela Dabrowski and Anastasia Rodionova, and both admitted to feeling relieved to be back on the doubles court for what is only their second tournament together in 2016.
“It’s true that sometimes when you play doubles, the nerves and the tension, you can share that with your partner and makes you play a little bit more solid and a little bit more freely,” Suárez Navarro said after her three-set win over Timea Babos on Sunday.
“I think yesterday we had a lot of fun on the court. I think the players we had, they were doubles players and they played a good match, an overall complete match. You had to stay focused. And not only that, I think that it’s of course a buildup for today’s match. You know how the court is laid out and you know how the people are going to be.”
Muguruza echoed her partner’s sentiment.
“I think that the doubles is the part that there are two people on the court and we help each other a lot. In the case of Carla and I, we know each other very well. Mutually we support ourselves and take the nerves off ourselves.”
The Rivalry: In a season with few certainties, one thing has been all but guaranteed in 2016: a match between teams Alla Kudryavtseva and Vania King and Julia Goerges and Karolina Pliskova. The pairs have already met three times since the start of the season, with Pliskova and Goerges winning both of their hardcourt encounters at the Australian Open and Indian Wells – the latter after King and Kudryavtseva’s straight-sets win over Hingis and Mirza.
Faced with what Kudryavtseva has called their “kryptonite” for a third time in Charleston, the pair finally defeated the BNP Paribas Open finalists to reach the semifinals, and will have the chance to even the series this week in Madrid, as they are set to face off in the first round. For their part, King and Kudryavtseva have taken the serendipity in stride and enjoying a partnership that has already taken them up to No.9 on the Road to Singapore Standings.
“We’re texting each other every day, and we’re really cute!” the Russian told WTA Insider. “We’re always supporting each other and following each others’ live scores. It’s been a nice connection.”
All photos courtesy of Getty Images.
