Sania Mirza and her doubles partner Shuai Peng exited the China Open being played in Beijing in the semifinals.
After comfortably winning the first set, the Indo-Chinese duo slumped to a shocking 6-2, 1-6, 5-10 defeat at the hands of Swiss star Martina Hingis and Chan Yung-jan of Chinese Taipei in an exhilarating last-four clash that lasted one hour and 16 minutes.
“Today was a really good win for Sania and me. It’s the first time we played them, and they didn’t play together before, but they’re really strong as a team,” Peng said of the Czech duo.
“Tomorrow it’s another really strong team,” Peng said. “We’ve lost to them twice, so we’re ready to just fight and play the match.”
The top four seeds will contest the semifinals at the WTA Premier Mandatory event. After three of the duos advanced courtesy of a match tiebreak in quarterfinal action.
In the other doubles semifinal, Hungarian-Czech pairing of Babos and Hlavackova beat Ekaterina Makarova and Elina Vesnina 7-5, 6-4, 10-8 in a contest that went right down to the wire.
Incidentally, Mirza and Peng had lost in the semifinals last week to the same opponents. Then Hingis and Chan went on to lift the title in Wuhan. This time, Mirza and Peng lost 6-2, 1-6, 5-10. Meanwhile last week they had lost in straight sets.