The top-seeded mixed doubles pair of Sania Mirza and Ivan Dodig were brushed away by Barbora Krejcikova and Marin Draganja in straight sets in the second round of the US Open on Sunday. The Indo-Croatian pair lost 3-6 4-6, which means India's hopes in the mixed doubles now lie firmly in the hands of Rohan Bopanna and his Canadian partner Gabriela Dabrowski.
Mirza and Dodig were slow in getting off the blocks and were punished in the first set. There were suggestions that the top seeds were rusty coming into the contest. Krejcikova and Draganja were coming hard with their serves and returns, and the top seeds did not have an answer. Mirza and Dodig also committed plenty of unforced errors, which ran up to 14 by the end of the game.
Shaken by the proceedings of the first set, the Mirza-Dodig pair came back strongly in the second, but Draganja's serve-and-volley game was top notch, creating points out of 61% of their first serves.
With the scores level at 4-4 in the second set, Mirza missed one of the easier smash attempts in her career, skewing it wide. That would be Mirza and Dodig's last attempt of scripting a late comeback. Draganja befittingly finished the game off with a ferocious ace.
