Martina Hingis and Flavia Pennetta won Moscow, meaning they will finish the year within a hair of the Top 8 teams in Singapore right now. Just how close did they come? (Source: wtatennis.com)
Published October 18, 2014 12:14
MOSCOW, Russia - Martina Hingis and Flavia Pennetta beat Caroline Garcia and Arantxa Parra Santonja to win their second WTA doubles title together at the Kremlin Cup and finish the year so, so close to the Top 8 teams at the BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global.
The No.2-seeded Hingis and Pennetta rallied from an early 2-0 deficit to win the first set then recorded the only break of the second set in the very last game to put away the No.4 seeds, 6-3, 7-5.
It was the second WTA doubles title of their partnership - they won another Premier-level event in Wuhan just a few weeks ago. It's Hingis' 40th individual WTA doubles title and Pennetta's 17th.
"We're happy to finish our season like this," Hingis said. "In China we had a good win, but then the last two tournaments we weren't as successful as we'd hoped. I think we were a little bit nervous, as we were trying to qualify for Singapore. But now I think we're feeling free to play our tennis again.It's nice to finish the season right here with the Kremlin Cup title."
Hingis was asked how special it was to return to Moscow.
"It's been a while since I played here in Moscow - I think the last time was 2000 or 2002," she said. "Coming back here and playing with Flavia is great, and winning the title is the cherry on the cake."
Perhaps even more significant - and potentially excruciating - is that Hingis and Pennetta, who were just edged by Alla Kudryavtseva and Anastasia Rodionova for the eighth spot in the doubles event at the WTA Finals, finish the Road To Singapore just 64 points behind the Russian-Australian duo, collecting 470 points to make their total 3346 (Kudryavtseva and Rodionova finished with 3410).
That stat is even more excruciating given they could have made up for that 64-point deficit by winning just one more match at five of the six tournaments they played together and didn't win the title at - and in all five of those losses they actually went to a third set or match tie-break:
Eastbourne - l. to Chan/Chan in F, 6-3, 5-7, 10-7 (would've been 165 more points)
Montréal - l. to Errani/Vinci in QFs, 6-2, 3-6, 10-1 (would've been 160 more points)
Cincinnati - l. to Pavlyuchenkova/Safarova in 1r, 7-6(8), 1-6, 10-6 (would've been 104 more points)
US Open - l. to Makarova/Vesnina in F, 2-6, 6-3, 6-2 (would've been 700 more points)
Beijing - l. to Mladenovic/Pavlyuchenkova in 2r, 6-3, 3-6, 10-6 (would've been 95 more points)** Tianjin - l. to Cirstea/Klepac in QFs, 3-6, 7-6(1), 10-6 (would've needed to win two more matches)
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