Sania Mirza-Martina Hingis qualify for WTA Finals

"Qualifying for the WTA Finals for the second year in-a-row with Sania is very exciting," says Martina, three-time WTA Finals doubles champion, while Sania opines that being able to achieve such great success together (with Martina) has been a dream come true.

Martina Hingis and Sania Mirza with the Australian Open trophy earlier this year. The pair has already won five titles in 2016.

The World No 1 women’s doubles pair of Martina Hingis and Sania Mirza have become the first players to qualify for the BNP Paribas WTA Finals to be held in Singapore from October 27, the Indian’s father-cum-coach Imran Mirza told Sportstar .

“The doubles competition is a single elimination contest between the top eight doubles teams of the 2016 season with the Martina Navratilova doubles trophy at stake besides the total prize money of $1.4 million and the winner collecting $ 500,000,” Imran said in a communication from London where Sania and Martina are playing in the warm-up events ahead of Wimbledon.

"Qualifying for the WTA Finals for the second year in-a-row with Sania is very exciting," says Martina, three-time WTA Finals doubles champion in a statement.

"We enjoyed every moment in Singapore last year and hope to defend our title amongst the best doubles teams in the world," she added.

Sania said that being able to achieve such great success together (with Martina) has been a dream come true.

“Having won the WTA Finals in Singapore last year as well as multiple tournaments in such a short period of time has been an unbelievable experience,” the Indian felt.

“I'm very much looking forward to competing in Singapore once again to try to make it three titles in a row," she added.

The San-Tina combination first came into being in 2015 at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, which they won and finished off that year with eight more titles, including the WTA Finals in Singapore.

This fearsome combination in women’s tennis has already won five titles this year at Brisbane International, Apia International Sydney, Australian Open, St. Petersburg Ladies Trophy and the Intermazionali BNL d’ Italia in Rome.

The following is the current doubles road to Singapore leader board: 1. Martina Hingis & Sania Mirza. 2. Carolina Garcia & Kristina Mladenovic. 3. Andrea Hlavackova & Lucie Hradecka. 4. Cha Hao-Ching & Chan Yung-Jan. 5. Xu Yifan & Zheng Saisai. 6. Ekaterina Makarova & Elena Vesnina. 7. Anabel Medina Garrigues & Arantxa Parra Santonja. 8. Julia Georges & Karolina Pliskova. 9. Vania King & Alla Kudryavtseva. 10. Timea Babos & Yaroslava Shvedova.