Sania Mirza and her doubles partner Shuai Peng’s bowed out in the semifinal of the China Open in Beijing on Saturday. The Indo-Chinese pair, the third seeds at the event, lost 6-2, 1-6, 5-10 to Mirza’s former partner Martina Hingis and Chan Yung-jan of Taiwan.
Mirza and Peng won the first set against the top seeds comfortably but went down a “breadstick” in the second and ultimately lost the match in the Super Tiebreak.
Incidentally, the duo had lost at the semifinal stage last week in Wuhan to the same opponents, where the Swiss-Taiwanese pair then went on to win the women’s doubles title.
Earlier, the third-seeded pair had defeated fifth seeded Barbara Strycova and Katerina Siniakov of Czechoslovakia 4-6, 6-2, 10-7 in the quarterfinals.
In the other semifinal, Hungarian-Czech duo of Timea Babos and Andrea Hlavackova defeated Ekaterina Makarova and Elina Vesnina 7-5, 6-4, 10-8 in a contest that went right down to the wire.