The Indian tennis star fails to lift her seventh Grand Slam title.
Sania Mirza and her partner Ivan Dodig lost to Abigail Spears and Juan Sebastian Cabal in the final of the Australian Open Mixed Doubles on Sunday. The Indo-Croatian pair were beaten convincingly 6-2 6-4 in just over an hour.
The Indian tennis star looked visibly upset at the end of the match as she missed out on the opportunity of lifting her seventh Grand Slam title. Mirza even refused to speak at the presentation ceremony, choosing to let her partner Dodig take the lead.
The runners-up have only themselves to blame, though, as the unforced-errors committed by them, especially Dodig, weighed heavily on the match.
After losing the first two points, Dodig served a double fault at 30-30 and then sent a forehand long to concede a break in the very first game of the match. Cabal and Spears though were in tremendous touch from the word go. Both were terrific from the back and at the net too.
Sania was also broken in the third game. It was Cabal's brilliant volley pick up which he placed well beyond the two players to earn a break point. Spears smashed a backhand service return winner to take the break as the second seeds trailed 0-3.
The American had an easy hold in the next to make it 4-0. The second seeds finally got on board when Dodig held the fifth game but they had already suffered the damage. Serving to stay in the opening set at 1-5, Sania saved a deciding a point to hold.
Spears was now serving for the set and lost the first two points to be 0-30 and soon Dodig found a forehand winner to earn a breakpoint but could not convert. Sania hit a backhand wide on the deciding point to concede the first set.
Dodig's serve was again under pressure as he faced a breakpoint and a deciding point in the first game of the second set but managed to save both. Cabal served a double fault at 40-30 to face a deciding point and the second seeds latched on to that to take a 2-0 lead as Spears hit a backhand long.
Sania had an easy hold to make it 3-0 as the Indo-Croatian pair was back in the match. However, Sania was broken in the seventh game which allowed the rivals to neutralise the advantage. The Indian committed a double fault to be down by two breakpoints and Spears smashed one overhead volley to convert the first. Spears held without fuss and the two pairs were now locked 4-4.
Dodig was never in his elements in Sunday's match and he served two double faults, the second one coming on a breakpoint, to allow Cabal to serve out the championship.
There were a fair number of people in the Rod Laver Arena on Sunday morning, most of whom were Indians who had come to support their tennis star. Even though she lost on the day, Mirza should be proud of herself as her trademark ground-strokes had set Melbourne Park alive the past two weeks.
It was Mirza's fifth final at the Australian Open. She was runner-up with Mahesh Bhupathi in 2008, and the pair triumphed the following year. She was runner-up in 2014 with Horia Tecau.
The Hyderabadi was the lone Indian to have made all the way to the first Grand Slam final of the season as Paes, Rohan Bopanna, Purav Raja, Divij Sharan and juniors -- Zeel Desai and Siddhant Banthia -- all made early exits.
(Inputs from PTI)
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 "Tennis, Abigail Spears, Ivan Dodig, Sania Mirza, Juan Sebastian Cabal, Web Exclusive, Australian Open 2017, Australian Open, Rod")
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