Sania, Martina win Aussie Open for third major trophy

In a perfect climax to their stupendous run, Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis were on friday crowned the Australian Open women’s doubles champions after they tamed the spirited Czech duo of Andrea Hlavackova and Lucie Hradecka in straight sets for their 36th win in a row, here.

The top seeds fought past the seventh seeds Andrea Hlavackova and Lucie Hradecka 7-6 (1) 6-3 in the women’s doubles final that lasted one hour and 45 minutes.

It was their third consecutive Grand Slam title for Sania and Martina, having won the Wimbledon and US Open in the 2015 season.

In an incredible feat, Sania and Martina have now extended their unbeaten run to 36 matches, winning eight titles in a row. They won five straight titles in 2015, starting from the US Open and before the Australian Open now.

It was Sania’s second title at the Australian Open, having won the mixed doubles in 2009 with Mahesh Bhupathi.

The final though was not a stroll in the park for the world number one team with the Czechs putting up a great fight in the opening set. The match was littered with breaks with the two teams struggling to hold serve throughout.

Hlavackova was excellent from the baseline and Hradecka was terrific at the net, playing some breathtaking shots and winners.

The top seeds though had enough resources in their kitty to blunt the challenge of the Czech girls.

“I would like to thank everyone for coming out and supporting us. For me Australian Open is special, it’s like home. I have special memories here. We had an incredible one year. Martina is an amazing champion and an amazing person, so it is a privilege for me to play with her,” Sania said.

“We know how good you are (Czech team). We lost to you at Roland Garros. Hopefully we will have more finals to fight for,” Sania said.

Martina was equally effusive in her praise for the Czechs.

“They pushed us to the limit. It was s tough tournament. We will try to defend our title next year.”

In the opening set, the two pairs could manage to hold serve only twice each as it was full of breaks.

Hradecka ran frantically to her left from the net and smashed one volley past Sania off Martina’s return and then the Swiss served two consecutive double faults to hand the Czechs an early break.

The top seeds had three break chances in the next game — the fourth — on Hlavackova’s serve but the Czech team saved all.

Martina earned a fourth at deuce with a volley and converted that with a forehand passing winner.

A double fault by Sania at 30-40 gave the break back to the Czech players, who were now leading 3-2.

Hradecka sent a forehand long to give the top seeds a breakpoint and netted a backhand to make it 3-3.

There was no end to breaks with Martina dropping her serve next. Hlavackova’s unreachable backhand lob gave the Czechs a breakpoint and the Swiss sent a forehand wide.

Hlavackova’s long forehand at 30-40 meant that Sania and Martina had a break chance but Martina’s return just landed wide and it was deuce.

The top seeds though made it 4-4 with Hlavackova’s consecutive forehand errors from the baseline.

Sania went down 0-40 in the next game but saved all three break chances. A forehand to net by Sania at deuce point and the top seeds were facing another break chance but managed to saved that.

Another break chance and this time the Czechs converted to lead 5-4. The seventh seeds came out to serve out the set but were broken.

Martina finally held her serve in the 11th game and the top seeds led 6-5, this time not allowing the Czechs to convert break opportunities.

Eventually the Czecks too held and it boiled down to a tiebreak in which the top seeds trampled their opponents, losing just one point, to pocket the opening set.

They broke Hradecka in the very first game of the second set and never looked back after that. Though Martina was broken in the sixth game but the favourites broke back for a 5-2 lead.

There was more drama as Martina was broken in the eight while serving for the match and they squandered three match points in the ninth game on Hradecka’s serve.

Sania and Martina finally closed the championship in their favour on the fourth chance.

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Match-fixing reports overshadow Australian Open

The “Happy Slam” got off to a sombre start when allegations of match-fixing in tennis overshadowed the opening day of play at the Australian Open.

Hours before the tournament started, the BBC and BuzzFeed reported that 16 players, all ranked in the top 50 at some stage and including at least one Grand Slam champion, had played in matches that had been flagged with tennis authorities because of suspicious betting patterns.

The reports also alleged tennis regulators hadn’t acted against those players, including some who were set to play at the first major tournament of the season.

It triggered news and reaction around the world, prompting the tennis hierarchy to stage an urgent news conference to refute the allegations.

Suspicion of corruption in parts of the broader game lingers, but the focus at the Australian Open has returned to the tennis court as the tournament comes to a close.

“The match-fixing claims have created headlines, true, but we as an organization have been pleased with how the entire sport has responded,” Australian Open tournament director Craig Tiley told The Associated Press. “It has been decisive and united.”

Being the start of the season and in Australia, the tournament usually has a laid-back vibe, and some players have dubbed it the “Happy Slam” for the atmosphere and hospitality.

Tiley said crowd numbers and viewership showed the tournament hadn’t been overshadowed by the match-fixing reports.

“The best answer I can give to that is through the numbers,” Tiley said. “We are on track for a record crowd and our other exposure numbers across multiple platforms are also very strong.”

Leading tennis officials have said there was no new evidence in the reports published on day one of the Australian Open.

Top players, including Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, all responded to questions about the topic after their opening matches.

All said there was no problem at the top level, but agreed the sport needed to react swiftly if it was a serious issue. Just as the first wave of allegations was receding, a second wave crashed into the second week when a New York Times report cast doubt over a mixed doubles match at the tournament.

“It has been hard on the Australian Open, no question about it,” ATP chairman Chris Kermode noted this week as he announced the independent review of the operations of the sport’s Tennis Integrity Unit.

“We need to address the perception, public confidence. We don’t have anything to hide at all.”

Tennis Integrity Board and Wimbledon chairman Philip Brook said while he didn’t think there was any new evidence of corruption, he acknowledged the reports had “changed the environment.”

Federer, who lost to Djokovic on Thursday in the semifinals, said after his opening-round victory that if any new claims of matchfixing were true, it would be “super serious.” But he said he’d heard “old names being dropped.” “It’s like who? What? It’s like thrown around, it’s so easy to do that. I would love to hear names. Then at least it’s concrete stuff,” Federer said last week.

“Was it a player? Was it support team? Who was it? Was it before? Was it a doubles player, was it singles player? Which slam? It’s so all over the place. It’s nonsense to answer something that is pure speculation.”

After the initial reports, lists of players appeared on blogs and speculation and innuendo dominated social media.

Mainstream media weighed in.

“It’s important to point out that having lists, which are mainly compiled by suspicious betting patterns, do not mean corruption,” Kermode said.

Last Sunday, the New York Times named some names. The newspaper reported that a betting agency had stopped taking bets on a mixed doubles match a half-day before it was set to start at the Australian Open because of an unexpected betting plunge.

All players in the match rejected any suggestion of fixing. The winning team confirmed they’d been interviewed by the Tennis Integrity Unit.

On the same day, a case involving a 27-year-old former top 200 player at a low-level futures event in 2013 in Toowoomba, a provincial town in the northern Queensland state, faced a court in Sydney over a corrupt betting charge.

Nick Lukas Lindahl was said to have told a friend he was going to “tank” a match “because that’s what tennis players do when they can’t play their best.” He faces court again in April.

Tanking is the tennis term for not giving 100 percent in a game, set or match. Tennis officials recognize there are at least 68 wagers a gambler can make on a match.

There are thousands of matches played in tournaments around the world each year, and it could be a target for illegal gambling because it takes only one player to corrupt an outcome,

Even in the Grand Slam tournaments, where scrutiny is high, players can be subjected to fines or sanctions by umpires or tournament referees for what is called “best efforts” or, more specifically, not putting in their best effort.

The independent review of the Tennis Integrity Unit, which was set up in 2008 to combat match-fixing, will have an open-ended deadline and budget and its findings will be made public.

“Yeah, that’s positive,” Murray said after his quarterfinal win. “I think in these situations, I think people become skeptical when it’s sort of kept in-house a little bit.”

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Djokovic survives Simon scare; reaches quarterfinals

Novak Djokovic’s grip on the Australian Open title looked shaky for a short spell on Sunday, but the World No. 1 finally shook off Gilles Simon in a four-and-a-half hour marathon to take his place in the quarterfinals.

Serena Williams, by contrast, booked a re-match of last year’s title decider against Maria Sharapova by sweeping into the quarterfinals without having lost a set, and Roger Federer progressed almost as comfortably to bring the day to a close.

The whiff of an upset hung around Melbourne Park for much of the day — Tomas Berdych, Agnieszka Radwanska and Carla Suarez Navarro all lost opening sets — but it was most potent in Djokovic’s five-setter against Simon.

Djokovic had eased into the fourth round without losing a set as he continued the dominant form that earned him 11 titles, including three of the four grand slams, last year.

Defensive baseliner Simon is a wily campaigner, however, and he elicited 100 unforced errors out of the reigning champion in his 6-3, 6-7(1), 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 defeat.

Hurtling around the arena on legs that have always looked too spindly to take the kind of punishment they regularly endure, the 31-year-old Frenchman absorbed Djokovic’s power and timed his shots to perfection to hurl it back at the Serbian.

Djokovic has not won five titles at Melbourne Park without being able to negotiate a scrap, however, and despite a string of fluffed drop shots he reasserted his authority in the final set to reach the last-eight for a 27th successive grand slam.

“I honestly didn’t expect to make this many unforced errors. In terms of a level that I’ve played, it’s the match to forget for me,” said Djokovic.

“When you’re playing someone like Simon… you’re trying to cut down on the length of the rallies, go for a winner or go for a dropshot. Sometimes you have a brain freeze, if I can call it that.”

Djokovic’s next opponent, Japan’s Kei Nishikori, must have enjoyed every last minute of the match as he rested up after a straightforward 6-4, 6-2, 6-4 victory over Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.

Nishikori was humiliated 6-1, 6-1 in his last meeting with Djokovic in November, and will be hoping to avenge that defeat and revive memories of his stunning upset of the Serbian in the semifinals of the 2014 U.S. Open.

“In London, he kind of destroyed me,” the seventh seed said. “I hope I can make some changes and try to play better. Yeah, I’m ready to beat him again.”

Williams lost her serve for the second time at the tournament in the opening game of her match, but that was just about all that went against the American in her brisk 6-2, 6-1 demolition of Margarita Gasparyan.

Sharapova was made to work much harder for her 7-5, 7-5 victory over teenager Belinda Bencic in the opening match of the day on the main showcourt.

The fifth seed’s reliance on her serve to get her out of trouble against the rising Swiss talent was at odds with perceptions of her game in recent years.

David Goffin has made great strides over the last couple of years, but could still not cope with 17-time grand slam champion Federer.

The 34-year-old Swiss got onto court late, but wasted little time in dissecting the Belgian 6-2, 6-1, 6-4 to set up a meeting with Berdych, who earlier came from behind to beat Roberto Bautista Agut 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, 1-6, 6-3.

“I’m pleased with how I played,” said Federer. “David normally gives me a hard time in practice, so I was surprised at how well I went.”

Radwanska and Suarez Navarro both had their nerves tested before being able to set up their quarterfinal date.

Radwanska was 5-2 down in her deciding set against Anna-Lena Friedsam, but the 21-year-old German was reduced to tears when her legs simply gave up on her, allowing the fourth seed to recover for a 6-7(6), 6-1, 7-5 victory.

Tenth seed Suarez Navarro rebounded from an opening-set battering to beat Daria Gavrilova 0-6, 6-3, 6-2 and end Australia’s interest in the women’s draw.

The most welcome recovery of the day was that of Ana Ivanovic’s coach and Andy Murray’s father-in-law, Nigel Sears.

The 58-year-old, who was taken to hospital on Saturday after collapsing in the stands in Rod Laver Arena, was discharged on Sunday and allowed to return home to Britain.

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