Press Trust India
London, July 12: Before Wimbledon 2015 started, Leander Paes wrote on his FB page, “Gunning for the 16th Grand Slam.” Well he achieved that here Sunday winning the mixed doubles title with who else, but Swiss Martina Hingis. The Indo-Swiss combination once more worked in tandem to demolish Alexander Peya of Austria and Timea Babos of Hungary 6-1, 6-1 in a match that lasted only 42 minutes.
So dominant were Leander and Martina, that the East European pair never knew what hit them. They were simply blown away as Leander and Martina dominated them from all parts of the court – be it at the net or behind the tramlines and the baseline.
It was Leander’s eighth mixed doubles title and second with Martina. They had won the Australian Open early this year. The 42-year-old Leander has eight men’s doubles crowns in his Grand Slam collection.
Leander and Martina literally toyed with Peya and Babos, who surprisingly failed to put any resistance. In no time Leander and Martina pocketed the first set in 19 minutes. The two broke Babos in the fourth game and Peya in the sixth for a 5-1 cushion. Martina served out the set when Paes smashed a volley winner.
The two kept the pressure on the Austrian- Hungarian combination right from the first game of the second set. Peya failed to negotiate a Leander return at deuce to hand the seventh seeds a breakpoint which they duly converted when Babos could not handle a Hingis return. There was no stopping the Indo-Swiss from there on as they raced to victory in less than one hour.
Babos failed to hold her serve even once and it was on her return that Leander hit a deft backhand volley winner to close the contest.