Entering the tournament on the back of a disappointing summer, Garcia and Mladenovic have improved with each contest, raising the bar again to sweep aside Hingis and Vandeweghe, 6-3, 6-4, on Grandstand.
Garcia and Mladenovic received an early wake-up call when they were broken to love in the third game. However, their response was as swift as it was emphatic; a run of four straight games took them to the brink of the set, which they duly closed out with an ace.
Twelve months ago, Hingis won the title in New York alongside then-partner Sania Mirza. Yet neither her guile nor Vandeweghe's vaunted power was able to derail the flying Frenchwomen in the second set.
Earlier this year at Roland Garros Garcia and Mladenovic rode a wave of public support all the way to a maiden Grand Slam title, and for a period in the second set they scaled even greater heights, surging 5-2 ahead. A late wobble held up their progress momentarily, before serving out victory at the second time of asking.
The disappointment for Hingis was twofold: defeat denied her the chance to usurp Mirza at the top of the rankings. Garcia and Mladenovic, meanwhile, move on to a final against Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Lucie Safarova after they upset No.5 seeds Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina, 6-2, 7-6(4), in the first semifinal.
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