World number 1 and top seeds Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis made a shock third round exit from the French Open on Sunday.
The Indo-Swiss pair lost to the unseeded Czech duo of Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova 3-6, 2-6 ending their hopes of winning a fourth Grand Slam on the trot.
“We played bad and they played good. It’s as simple as that,” Mirza said. “You have to come up with your ‘A’ game. ... We obviously didn’t play anywhere close to our best.”
Hingis complained about a couple officiating decisions and said: “Everything kind of went against us today.”
Sania and Hingis were rusty from the start and could not hold their serve five times in the match, including four in the second set.
Giving away a breakpoint in the opener, they lost the first set 3-6. The start of the second was no different as they failed to hold their first two serves to trail 0-4.
The top seeds however fought back at that stage and broke their opponents to finally get on the board in the second at 4-1. However, they then conceded their own serve in the next game and the scoreline read 5-1.
The Czech pair served for the match but Sania and Hingis were yet to throw in the towel and broke their opponents’ serve to make it 2-5. But there was not be any further fightback from them as they yet again failed to hold serve in the crucial eighth and with it lost the match as well.
6-3, 6-2 to Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova.
Indian Men Stay On Track
In the men’s doubles draw, Indian stars Leander Paes and Rohan Bopanna stormed into the quarter-finals.
The 16th-seeded Paes and his Polish partner Marcin Matkowski stunned fourth seeds England’s Jamie Murray and Brazil’s Bruno Soares 7-6 (5), 7-6 (4) in one hour and 43 minutes in the third round to enter the last eight stage.
Bopanna and his men’s doubles partner Romanian Florin Mergea outclassed the US’ Brian Baker and New Zealand’s Marcus Daniell 6-2, 6-7 (4), 6-1 in one hour and 48 minutes in the third round to enter the last eight stage.
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