Reports are afloat in the tennis world that "SanTina", the duo of Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis are splitting after they had signed up to play for the upcoming US Open with Barbora Strycova and Coco Vandeweghe respectively. However, both players are yet to make any official statement.
An unbelievable partnership
For the better part of the previous season, Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis became the team to beat, winning a record 41 matches on the trot including three Grand Slams and the year-end WTA Tour Championships. With Hingis' razor-sharp volleying skills and Mirza's blistering forehand from the baseline, they became an instant success to the point of being invincible. Their successful partnership began in Indian Wells in 2015 which they won without dropping a set, and they backed it up with a title in Miami.
The duo has a whopping 14 titles to their name including the Grand Slams and Tour Championship title. They were also awarded the Year-End No.1 team for 2015. They quickly rose to fame in the infamous Wimbledon 2015 finals when they came back to win the title after being 2-5 down in the decider. They have been the undisputed No.1 in both individual and team women's doubles since Charleston.
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When things started going downhill
However, things started going downhill for them after winning the Australian Open this year and it was accounted to clay being their least favorite surface. Hingis' serve has always been the weak link in their powerful team and they usually relied on their returning skills to pull them out of trouble. Things became very difficult when both of them were frequently broken during their service games.They have been having less than stellar results on the WTA tour of late and were hitting new lows when they were being totally outperformed by scratch pairs. They have always been a powerful force on hard courts but their forgettable loss in the hard courts of Montreal must have only added to their decision to reconsider. For those following the Indo-Swiss pair, it was obvious that they had to regroup, but the timing of their decision has come as a surprise, as both Hingis and Mirza have to defend their year-end World Tour Championships title in Singapore.
Mirza had briefly partnered Coco Vandeweghe in the week before Birmingham, a warm-up event before Wimbledon as Hingis wasn't available that week. Now Hingis will be the one partnering Vandeweghe in the US Open. It is unknown whether the split is temporary but they have an uphill task of replicating the success of this partnership.