Sania Mirza and her partner Barbora Strycova struggled to shrug off the ghosts from their shock defeat in the US Open quarter-final earlier in the month as they dug deep to oust the Japanese pair of Misaki Doi and Kurumi Nara 6-7(3), 7-5, 10-8 in the Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo.
Despite being the second seeded pair at the tournament, Mirza and Strycova toiled against their unseeded opposition. The match was settled in the super tie-breaker, which Mirza and Strycova won 10-8.
In the rain-affected quarter-final of the US Open, the Mirza-Strycova duo collapsed from 5-2 up in the first set to lose 6-7(3), 1-6 against the French pair of Caroline Garcia and Kristina Mladenovic.
