Second seeds Sania Mirza and Barbora Strycova put up a ruthless display of power and precision to thrash the unseeded Chinese duo of Chen Liang and Zhaoxuan Yang, 6-1, 6-1 in the $100, 000 Tokyo Pan Pacific Open final on Saturday. This is the Indo-Czech pair’s second title of the season after having earlier triumphed at Cincinnati just last month.
For Mirza, this was the third time that she won this tournament. The Indian’s previous wins came in 2013 and 2014 alongside Cara Black. As for Strycova, this was her second title at this venue having tasted glory in 2010 with Iveta Melzer.
This latest win marks the eighth title of a stellar season for the 29-year-old Indian tennis queen. The World No. 1 began 2016 with a bang and clinched five titles with Martina Hingis that included the Australian Open. But after some inconsistency in between the two parted ways following which Mirza added two more titles with Strycova and Monica Niculescu prior to today’s match.
Dominant display by Mirza and Strycova
The second seeds started with a break in the very first game of the match to go up 1-0. There was no looking back for the Indo-Czech pair as they raced away to 5-0 before closing the set at 6-1. Mirza and Strycova had four breaks of serve in the opening set.
There was no exception in the second set. The second seeds looked unstoppable as they displayed the same aggression and pin-point accuracy on their shots.
The only time the Chinese were able to give some resistance was in the third game of the second set when they carved out four break points. But Mirza and Strycova fought back impressively to deny them the break.
The set was one-way traffic since then with the Indo-Czech combine grabbing the next four games to take the title 6-1, 6-1 in just 51 minutes. They effected a total of six breaks of serve in the match and had 59% of first serve percentage.
In contrast, the Chinese pair managed to make in-roads into the victors’ serves just once despite having been presented with six break point opportunities.
