By Chris Oddo | Friday, January 29, 2016
Martina Hingis and Sania Mirza refuse to lose. The Swiss-Indo pairing won their 36th consecutive match on Friday in Melbourne to claim their third consecutive Grand Slam title. Hingis and Mirza—dubbed Team SanTina—eased past Lucie Hradecka and Andrea Hlavackova, 7-6(1), 6-3, to win their first title in Australia in their first appearance as a team.
“Yeah, it's amazing. Our fairytale continues,” said Hingis, who claimed her 21st Grand Slam title and 12th Grand Slam doubles title with the win. “It's amazing since winning Wimbledon. After that we only lost two more matches. It keeps going.”
Mirza now owns six Grand Slam titles, three of which came in mixed doubles.
The No. 1 seeds battled through a topsy-turvy first set that featured eight breaks of serve before claiming a one-sided tiebreaker. Hlavackova and Hradecka, two-time Grand Slam champions themselves, fell behind early in the second set but rallied to close within a pair of games and even saved three match points before falling.
Hingis and Mirza’s win streak is the longest in 26 years on the WTA Tour. The pair are also the first team to win three consecutive major titles since the Williams Sisters won four in a row beginning at Wimbledon in 2009.