Sania Mirza playing with a strapped thigh and seeded sixth along with Mahesh Bhupati lost 6-3, 6-3 to the eight seeded pairing of Bethanie Mattek Sands and Horia Tecau.

The Indian pair got off a slow start with Mahesh Bhupati losing his serve early to go down 1-4 in the first set. They lost the set 6-3 but fought hard in the second set to lead 3-2. However this time Sania Mirza lost her serve to go down 4-3 and the American Romanian duo of Sands and Tecau go on to a 5-3 lead. Bhupati while serving to stay in the match went down 0-40 on serve recovered to Advantage-All but double faulted at match point to bow out.

The Indian Pairing had won the Mixed doubles title at the Australian Open in 2009 and may come together to play together in the Olympics to be held in London later this year.

Earlier in Women’s doubles action Sania Mirza had bowed out in the semi final with her partner Elena Vesnina to the Russian pair of Svetlana Kuznetsova and Vera Zvonareva 7-6(4), 2-6, 6-4. The Russians would go on to be the eventual champions. The sixth seeds had a good campaign beating the second seeds Liezel Huber and Lisa Raymond in the quarterfinals in a very close encounter that had the crowd thrilled.

In the singles however Sania Mirza lost in the first round to Bulgaria’s Tsvetana Pironkova 6-4, 6-2. Pironkova was a tough opponent ranked 47 and almost 60 places above Sania’s 106 currently. The first set was close but Pironkova’s experience came through. Pironkova has reached the semi finals of Wimbledon in 2010 and quarterfinals last year in singles. Sania on the other hand has been dogged by injuries and also spent a lot of time focusing on the doubles front which has been very successful for her. Sania is currently ranked at 11th in the World in doubles.

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