Hingis, Jamie Murray win mixed doubles

Martina Hingis clinched her 23th Grand Slam title as the Swiss star and Scottish partner Jamie Murray beat Henri Kontinen and Heather Watson 6-4, 6-4 in the Wimbledon mixed doubles final yesterday.Just hours after her compatriot Roger Federer won a record eighth Wimbledon singles crown, Hingis made it a double celebration for Switzerland on Centre Court.Top seeded Hingis and Murray, the brother of men’s world number one Andy, saw off Finland’s Kontinen and Britain’s Watson.“It’s not bad for us!” Hingis said of a memorable day for her and Federer.“I’m really pleased I contacted Jamie before Wimbledon. I’m really happy how we played.“We knew before the final a British player was going to win the mixed doubles. I’m just happy it was mine.”Hingis, 36, has now amassed six mixed doubles Grand Slam titles, 12 Grand Slam women’s doubles crowns and also won five major singles titles, including Wimbledon in 1997.Murray got his hands on the Wimbledon mixed doubles silverware 10 years after first winning it with Jelena Jankovic.The 31-year-old also won the Australian and US Open men’s doubles titles in 2016.Makarova and Vesnina cruise to women’s doubles title Russians Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina won the Wimbledon women’s doubles title for the first time on Saturday with a crushing 6-0 6-0 victory over the pairing of Taiwan’s Hao-Ching Chan and Romanian Monica Niculescu.The second-seeded Russian pair have now won three of the grand slam events in doubles following their triumph at the French Open in 2013 and the US Open a year later.The final lasted 54 minutes and the Russians, runners-up at the All England Club in 2015, had to save just two break points in the entire match against the pairing playing in their first season together.The top-seeded duo of American Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Czech Lucie Safarova had to withdraw before the second round after Mattek-Sands suffered a severe injury in a singles match.Marathon men Kubot and Melo win men’s doubles crownPoland’s Lukasz Kubot and Brazil’s Marcelo Melo won the Wimbledon men’s doubles title on Saturday after beating Oliver Marach and Mate Pavic 5-7 7-5 7-6(2) 3-6 13-11 in an epic test of endurance.The match had to be finished under the Centre Court floodlights with play suspended at 11-11 in the evening gloom for the roof to be closed.Marach and Pavic were caught cold and broken in their first service game after the restart, leaving the victorious pair to fall to the floor in an exhausted celebration after clinching victory in a match lasting four hours and 39 minutes.Both pairs had come through titanic five-set battles in the semi-finals, with Austrian Marach and Croatia’s Pavic taking more than four and a half hours to subdue Croatians Nikola Mektic and Franko Skugor 17-15 in the final set.