Filed under: Sania Mirza
LOS ANGELES: Sania Mirza and her South African companion Liezel Huber crashed out of the JP Morgam Chase Open with a straight set defeat at the hands of Serbian-Russian pair of Ana Ivanovic and Maria Kirilenko in the first round in Los Angeles.
The Sania-Liezel pair, after losing a see-saw first set, were never in the game and it took their rivals just about an hour and a half to chalk out a 7-6(2), 6-2 win to breeze into the second round.
Despite a not-so-impressive year in the singles, Sania has been in better form in doubles and in fact reached a career high 31 in the July 24 WTA rankings, before slipping a rung. The Sania-Liezel pair had reached the quarterfinals in the Acura Classic where they went down to fourth seeds Anna-Lena Groenefeld and Meghann Shaughnessy 2-6, 5-7.
They were not so lucky this time around. In the first set, service was a huge let down for the Indo-South African pair and they wasted as many as five break points. Both the pairs exchanged three break points as the set was stretched to a tie-breaker and the Ivanovic-Kirilenko pair looked in control of their nerves as they sealed the issue and went one up.
After the gruelling first set, Sania and Liezel ran out of gas and the second set proved a lop-sided show with their rivals calling the shots. Ivanovic and Kirilenko broke their rivals twice and hardly broke a sweat on their way to clinch the set and the match.
In singles, Sania was handed a tough draw and the Hyderabadi teen faces 16th seed Jelena Jankovic in her first round encounter in the 600,000 dollar WTA Tier II event later today. And in case Sania manages to tame her illustrious rival, she would face either Czech Lucie Safarova or Croatia’s Jelena Kostanic in the second round.
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