Sania Mirza and her partner Caroline Garcia knocked out in 1st round of Qatar Open

What's the story?

India's tennis star Sania Mirza and her partner Caroline Garcia of France were knocked out in the 1st round of the women's doubles event at the Qatar Open tennis tournament.

In case you didn't know...

The Qatar Total Open 2020 is a Premier 5 level tournament, and its 2020 edition is being staged from 23rd February to 29th February in Doha, Qatar.

The tournament, played on hard courts, comprises of both women's singles and women's doubles events and offers a total prize money of $2,939,695. The singles draw comprises 64 players while the doubles draw comprises of 32 pairs.

Mirza and her partner Garcia were given a wildcard entry in the main draw of the women's doubles.

Caroline Garcia

The heart of the matter

Mirza and Garcia went down fighting 4-6, 5-7 to Cagla Buyukakcay of Turkey and Laura Siegemund of Germany.

Mirza and Garcia started well by breaking their opponents in the very first game. After that the games went with serve till the Indo-French pair were broken back in the 8th game.

This changed the momentum of the set as the German-Turk pair held serve in the next game and then broke again in the 10th to close out the set 6-4.

Laura Siegemund

The start of the second set was similar to the first with Mirza and Garcia taking a 3-0 lead, including two breaks of serve. But they could not sustain the momentum and parity was restored when they were broken back twice.

Serving at 5-6 to stay in the match, they were broken again to lose the set 5-7 and with it the match.

Also check out: the complete Qatar Open 2020 Schedule

Tough loss for Sania Mirza in WTA Doha R1 pic.twitter.com/w3Hde6r6Os

— Indian Tennis Daily (@IndTennisDaily) February 24, 2020

This was Mirza's fourth tournament since returning to the game post the birth of her son. Although she started well by bagging the title in her first tournament back at the Hobart International, it has not been a good run post that.

Mirza had to retire from her first match at the Australian Open due to a calf injury. After recovering from that, she lost in the second round of the Dubai Open and now in the first round of the Qatar Open.

What's next?

The loss is a setback to Mirza's preparations for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. She would be looking to perform better in the upcoming tournaments of the WTA tour in order to secure her place in the women's doubles draw at the Tokyo Olympics.