Sania Mirza-Cara Black win 1st title of the year

Oeiras, (Portugal): Sania Mirza and Cara Black won their first title of the season with a hard-fought 6-4, 6-3 win over Eva Hrdinova and Valeria Solovyeva in the final of the WTA Portugal Open here on Saturday.

The top seeded Indo-Zimbabwean pair, playing their third finals of the season, was tested by the Czech-Russian team in summit clash, which lasted one hour and 18 minutes.

Courtesy an early break, the top seeds raced to 3-1 lead in the opening set but Eva and Valeria raised their game by a few notches to not only break their rivals back but also snatched lead by the seventh game.

Stunned by the fightback of the Czech-Russian pair, Sania and Cara broke Eva and Valeria in the eight game to make it 4-4 and one more time in the 10th to pocket the first set. After trading a break each, the two pairs were 3-3 in the second set.

A double fault by Cara put the top seeds down a breakpoint but they saved it to be up 4-3. They broke the fighting rivals in the next game and Sania served out the match in the ninth game. Sania and Cara shared euro 9,919 as prize money and earned 280 ranking points each for the victory.