In an unexpected development on 9 August, Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis decided to end their astonishing partnership that took the tennis world by storm last year when they won nine titles including the year-end WTA championship.
Explaining the decision to part ways, a source close to Sania had told PTI, “Yes, the partnership is over. They have not got the desired results in last five months. You see, they have lost to players outside top-100 and it reflects that something is wrong. But is a regular phenomena, you can change partner if results are not coming.”
Now Martina has taken to Instagram to officially spell out the reason for split.
Martina wrote, “After three Grand Slam victories and eleven WTA doubles titles together, we have mutually agreed that we would each be open to playing with other players for the remainder of the season. Perhaps, because of our great past results, we have had very high expectations from our partnership and unfortunately did not get the results we desired recently.
“We would like to clarify that it was a totally professional decision based purely on our recent results. The professional decision has not and will not in any way affect the wonderful personal relationship that we continue to share.
“We also look forward to defending our title in the year-end WTA Finals in Singapore in October for which Santina has already qualified. We hope that this puts to rest some of the fabricated stories that have been doing the rounds in some sections of the media. Best Sania and Martina.”
Sania will now play with world number 21 Barbora Strycova from the Czech Republic while Martina has teamed up with Coco Vandeweghe of the United States of America.
Sania’s partnership with Barbora will at the Cincinnati event while she is set to play with American Bethanie-Mattek Sands at New Haven before again uniting with the Czech at the US Open, the last Grand Slam of the season.