Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis' incredible 41-match unbeaten streak finally came to an end at the quarter-finals of the Qatar Open on Thursday. The Indo-Swiss duo nicknamed "Santina" by their adoring fans went down 6-2, 2-6, 5-10 to the Russian pair of Elena Vesnina and Daria Kasatkina.
It had been an incredible run, stretching back to August 2015, but the law of averages finally caught up with Hingis and Mirza. They did start off strongly to win the first set, but lost the second set to force the match into the decider. Their Russian opponents sped to an early 5-1 lead in the tie-breaker, but Santina fought back to make it 7-4.
However, a few unforced errors at the end allowed Vesnina and Kasatkina to record a famous win over their more illustrious opponents.
Had Mirza and Hingis won three more matches, they would have equalled the mark of 44 unbeaten matches set by Natasha Zvereva of Belarus and Czech Jana Jana Novotna in 1990.
The longest women's doubles win streak, however, is 109 matches, set by the American pair of Martina Navratilova and Pam Shriver between 1983 and 1985.
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