AGENCY
LONDON: Defending champions and top seeded pair of Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis crashed out in the quarter-finals of the women’s doubles event at the Wimbledon on Thursday.
Fifth seeded pair of Timea Babos of Hungary and Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan beat the Indo-Swiss pair 6-2 6-4 in only 68 minutes.
Mirza’s disastrous campaign at the Wimbledon ended as she had already exited from the mixed doubles event where she and her Croatian mixed doubles partner Ivan Dodig lost their second round encounter in straight sets.
In the first set, the Mirza-Hingis pair were broken in the third game and then in the seventh game as the fifth seeds won the first set 6-2.
If the first set was an easy affair for Babos and Shvedova, the second set virtually became a cakewalk as they opened up an unassailable 5-1 lead with a double break.
However, Mirza and Hingis tried to claw their way back by winning one break back, making it 4-5 before the winners held their serve in the 10th game to enter the last four stage.
Mirza and Hingis were guilty of not winning too many points on first serve and also made a lot of unforced errors to make life difficult for themselves.
Mirza would have liked to get some form going her way with less than a month left for Rio Olympics. (PTI)
