Martina Hingis and Sania Mirza are in the women's doubles final at Wimbledon
Friday 10 July 2015 22:38, UK
Former singles winner Martina Hingis could claim a doubles double at Wimbledon this weekend after reaching two finals.
Hingis, a member of the International Tennis Hall of Fame, and ladies' doubles partner Sania Mirza are seeded No 1 and won their semi-final against the fifth-seeded American pair of Raquel Kops-Jones and Abigail Spears 6-1, 6-2 on Friday.
The 34-year-old Swiss will partner Sania Mirza against Russians Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina in Saturday's women's doubles title match, following a 6-1 6-2 success against Americans Raquel Kops-Jones and Abigail Spears.
After that Court One success on Friday afternoon, Hingis had a short break before joining Mirza's fellow Indian player Leander Paes at the same arena to score a 6-3 6-4 win against American top seeds Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Mike
Bryan.
The mixed doubles final, where Hingis and Paes will tackle Hungarian Timea Babos and Austrian Alexander Peya, follows the men's singles final on Sunday.
Hingis won the Wimbledon women's singles as a 16-year-old in 1997, and has twice come out of retirement since.
Paes, 42, said of their grand slam partnership coming about in the last year: "She finally said 'Yes'.
"We played World Team Tennis for about three years together and we were undefeated there, and I'd asked Martina about a year and a half or two years ago, and she said, 'I'm not good enough', and I was like, 'Are you crazy? You're
so good, let's play together'.
"She finally said 'Yes' at the US Open last year and we started at the Australian Open and it's been a great run."
They won the Australian Open title before making an early French Open exit.
Hingis said of forming a strong mixed doubles team: "It's like a partnership, it's almost like a relationship, the chemistry has to work, and if you get on on and off the court that's the most important thing."
Seventeen years ago, Hingis won the Wimbledon doubles trophy with Jana Novotna. Hingis won all four majors in doubles that season, teaming with Mirjana Lucic-Baroni at the Australian Open, and Novotna at the others.
Hingis, who won five Grand Slam singles titles in the 1990s, initially quit tennis in 2002 because of foot and leg injuries, then rejoined the circuit full time in 2006. She announced her retirement again in 2007.
The Swiss star returned to tennis in recent years as a coach and now is back playing, perhaps with an eye to competing at next year's Rio Olympics.
