Indian tennis ace Sania Mirza’s run at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia came to an end at the hands of her former partner Martina Hingis in the semi-finals at Rome on Saturday. The Indian and her Kazakh partner Yaroslava Shvedova seeded third, fell 3-6, 6(7)-7 to the second seeds Hingis and Yung-Jan Chan in 1 hour 44 minutes.
With Mirza’s loss, the Indian campaign comes to an end at the Italian capital as earlier on Friday, Rohan Bopanna too had tumbled out of the men’s doubles draw in the quarter-finals. Bopanna and Pablo Cuevas of Uruguay lost a nail-biting encounter to the fourth-seeded French team of Nicolas Mahut and Pierre-Hugues Herbert, 6-7(5), 7-6(2), 10-12 in a 1-hour 56-minute battle.
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Mirza and Hingis had won the Rome title last year while playing alongside each other. It was their last triumph as a pair before splitting up in August.
12 months on, the Indian came to Rome with her new partner Shvedova with whom she had joined forces only last week at Madrid. Hingis, in contrast, arrived in Rome with a lot of confidence having captured two titles this season with Chan, the last of which came at Madrid.
It was only a solitary break of serve that gifted the first set to the Swiss-Chinese Taipei duo. In the second set, Mirza and Shvedova produced some gritty fight as the two pairs broke each other twice.
But the in-form Swiss-Chinese Taipei combine managed to raise their level at the end of a hard-fought tie-break to grab the win in straight sets.
This is Hingis’ third consecutive appearance in the Rome final, having made last two years alongside Mirza.
Bopanna-Cuevas fall in a nailbiter
Bopanna and Cuevas have been in fine form in this European clay season. With the Monte Carlo Masters title in tow, they have looked one of the most dangerous teams ahead of the French Open.
The Indo-Uruguayan duo had upset the reigning French Open champions Feliciano Lopez and Marc Lopez in the second round at Rome which was their second victory over the Spanish team in a month.
However, against the two-time Grand Slam champions Hugues-Herbert and Mahut, they came up short by a whisker, despite fighting their way back from a set down.
