Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Sania Mirza are determined upon winning their second straight tournament triumph of the year here on Saturday as they appear to establish themselves as the best women’s doubles pairing in the world.
Sania who sacrificed her singles career to concentrate upon doubles and mixed doubles events completed has been showing signs of her once ominous form back again. However, her glorious career is marked with some ups and down because of which she had to play under different conditions.
Dubai-based Sania and Mattek-Sands emerged victorious after being through to the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championship final with a 6-2, 7-5 success over Zimbabwe’s Cara Black and Anastasia Rodionova, of Australia, on Centre Court in Friday’s first semi showdown.
As far as her combination with Mattek-Sands is considered, it seems to be the best one for Sania on an overall who previously teamed up several other players, but no stable partnerships established so far.
The Indian pro, 26, and her 27-year-old American playing partner will now face seeded opposition in this weekend’s showpiece in either the second favourites Nadia Petrova and Katarina Srebotnik or the fourth-ranked pairing Nuria Llagostera Vives and Jie Zheng.
“We’re getting better with every match,” said an elated Sania, who prevailed alongside Mattek-Sands at the Brisbane International back in January. “We’re trying to work on the things that we didn’t do well in the previous match and get better at them in the next one. That’s how you keep improving.
“It’s good that we’re maybe peaking at the right time and now there’s just one more match to go.
“We’re glad that we have a shot at the title. We’re in the final round and, if we keep playing like this, we can win.
“We want to try and get our second title of the year — whether it’s this week or next — and, hopefully, there will be a few more to follow.
“We believe that we can be a very good team and perhaps the best in the world, so that’s our goal. We’re going to try to do well — and win — in Grand Slams and, if we keep playing like that, we don’t see why we cannot achieve that.”
An enticing win in this weekend’s finale would also alleviate painful memories of last year’s clash for Sania, who finished as a runner-up to Liezel Huber and Lisa Raymond 12 months ago.
“Last year, I was in the final here with (Elena) Vesnina and we couldn’t get a win, so hopefully we can do tomorrow (Saturday),” she added.
After going through all these developments, it can now be said that the Hyderabad girl is in scintillating form and hopefully she will continue it forward with the best features provided in a perfect manner. Definitely, the pair with the American girl might bring more luck to Sania with more tournaments to be won in the future.
Currently, she is fully charged up with the present career developments that she has been experiencing in a perfect manner reflecting the her career best moments as well.
