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Sania-Martina romp into Madrid Masters final

Last updated on: May 06, 2016 18:24 IST

Sania Mirza

IMAGE: Martina Hingis of Switzerland and India's Sania Mirza react during a match. Photograph: Scott Barbour/Getty Images.

Top seeds Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis entered the final at the Madrid Open after a crushing 6-2, 6-0 victory over Vania King and Alla Kudryavtseva on Friday.

It is the second successive final for the Indo-Swiss pair following the runners-up finish in Stuttgart.

After their incredible run, that included nine title victories on the trot, Sania-Martina have lost to only four teams and Vania-Alla is one of them.

Sania-Martina had lost to the American-Russian combine in the second round at Indian Wells but did not give them any chance on Friday, romping home in 50 minutes.

If the unseeded pair won two games, it was because the top seeds dropped serve twice.

In the second set, Sania-Martina cruised to a 4-0 lead after breaking in the second and fourth games respectively.

They will now take on fifth seeds Caroline Garcia and Kristina Mladenovic for their 14th title together.

Garcia-Mladenovic ousted eighth seeds Elena Vesnina and Ekaterina Makarova 6-2, 6-3 in the other semi-final.

Sania-Martina have already won titles in Sydeny, Brisbane, the Australian Open and St Petersburg this season.

On Thursday, Sania-Martina made it to the semi-finals, scoring a 6-3, 6-2 victory over the Czech pair of Andrea Hlavackova and Lucie Hradecka in the quarter-finals.

Bopanna advances, Bhupathi exits

Meanwhile, Rohan Bopanna and his Romanian partner Florin Mergea advanced to the quarter-finals in the men's doubles at the tournament.

After losing the first set by a whisker, the sixth-seed pair staged a spirited fightback to prevail 6-7(4-7), 6-4, 10-4 over the Uruguayan-Spaniard pair of Pablo Cuevas and Marcel Granollers Pujol a second round match.

The Indo-Romanian pair will take on the Finnish-Australian pair of Henri Kontinen and John Peers, who also made it to the quarter-finals following a 6-4, 7-6(7-4) win over Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares.

However, there was bad news for Mahesh Bhupathi, who, partnering Frenchman Fabrice Martin, was knocked out of the tournament after a 3-6, 6-4, 6-10 defeat at the hands of the seventh-seed pair of Alexander Peya and Nenad Zimonjic.

It was Bhupathi's first tournament since the Delhi Open, in February, where he partnered Yuki Bhambri to clinch his first doubles title in three years.

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