One year ago, Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis were one of the biggest tennis stories as they came back from a losing position to win the Wimbledon ladies doubles crown in stunning fashion. One year later, their title defense ended in a whimper in the quarter-finals on Thursday at the All England Club.
The top seeds were hardly the pair who won three Major titles in a row from last year’s Wimbledon to this year’s Australian Open. In just 1 hour 9 minutes, they departed from the hallowed grass Slam after a disappointing 2-6, 4-6 loss to the fifth seeds Yaroslava Shvedova and Timea Babos.
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The statistics were quite dismal for a team with such glowing accomplishments. Their opponents managed to convert all four of their break point chances while Team Santina could only break them just once at the fag end of the match when they already staring at defeat at 2-5 in the second set.
The serve was a total letdown for them. Just 57% of their first serves were in and they compounded their problems further by throwing in 3 double faults, two of which came in an absolutely one-sided first set.
They managed to grab a total of 48 points in this last-eight contest which was 13 less than their lower seeded rivals.
This is the second consecutive Major pre-semi-final loss for the Indo-Swiss pair after their defeat at the pre-quarter-final stage of the French Open just a few weeks back.
With this setback, Sania Mirza’s 2016 Wimbledon campaign comes to an end while Hingis will still be in action in mixed doubles alongside India’s evergreen Leander Paes. The pair won last month’s French Open mixed doubles title.
