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Sania-Zheng clinch New Haven title

Last updated on: August 25, 2013 11:50 IST

Indian tennis ace Sania Mirza paired up with new partner Jie Zheng to claim the women's doubles trophy at the WTA New Haven Open on Saturday.

With that the Hyderabadi has now won her third title of the season and 17th overall.

Playing just their fourth event together, the third-seeded pair of Sania and Jie pipped the second-seeded pair of Anabel Medina Garrigues and Katarina Srebotnik 6-3, 6-4 in the summit clash.

Mirza and Zheng fell behind an early break but quickly got back and from 3-3 in the first set, they won six of the next seven games to capture the first set and take control of the second.

Sania Mirza and Jie ZhengThey did have slight trouble closing out the second set as at 5-2, Medina and Srebotnik won two games in a row and then got to deuce on Mirza's serve before the Indo-Chinese duo claimed victory on their fifth match point.

"We didn't start the tournament too well, winning a couple of -- what you might call -- ugly matches," Mirza said.

"But we kept getting better with each match. It was great to play our best match in the final.

"It's tough with this format. It's relentless. There's really no margin of error with the deuce points, the super tie-break. It's just a toss-up sometimes. Even today's match was 6-3, 6-4, but it was much tighter with the deuce points. The last set we won three deuce games."

It was Sania's fourth final of the year and 25th overall.

Both of Sania's previous titles this season came with American partner Bethanie Mattek-Sands.

Image: Sania Mirza and Jie Zheng

Photograph: Elsa/Getty Images

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