Australian Open: Sania crashes out of Singles

Melbourne, Jan 21: Sania's confidence and hope to beat Russia's Nadia Petrova didn't come to her rescue. On Wednesday, Jan 21 Sania Mirza crashed out of the Australian Open Women Singles after suffering a 3-6, 2-6 hammering at the hands of 10th seed Nadia in the second round at Melbourne.

Indian ace shuttler, was making a comeback to the competitive tennis after a long injury lay-off. With Sania's defeat, India's hope ended in the singles action in the first Grand Slam of the year.

Cashing in on little mistakes of big players is imperative to tame them but the Indian player missed on those chances in both the sets. But unseeded Sania did show some improvement in her ground strokes as she hit some mind blowing double-handed backhand winners but failed to maintain the intensity.

It was now turn of Sania to face a break-point, which she offered by hitting a forehand long, and the Russian gleefully accepted that to go up 3-1. Petrova consolidated the lead to 4-1 by holding her serve in the next game and the set went on serve from there in favour of the Russian.

Indian shuttler did engage her rival in long rallies, showing that she had a plan to set up points, but lacked in execution. But Petrova was calm even in tight situation and held her nerves to ward off the danger.

In the second set again Sania had an early chance to break Petrova, when she had two breakpoints in the fourth game. But Petrova raised her game by a few notches and served extremely well to deny the Indian any chance to make a comeback to the match.

In the fifth and seventh game Petrova break Sania to create a 5-2 lead and served out the set and match with the help of a couple of aces.

Sania Mirza will now play mixed doubles with Mahesh Bhupathi and Women's doubles with American Vania King.


OneIndia News (With inputs from Agencies)