Sania Mirza and Sunitha Rao made their exit from the Olympic tennis competition, losing to champions Svetlana Kuznentsova and Dinara Safina of Russia 4-6, 4-6 in the second round match at Beijing. Sania, who withdrew in women’s singles first round due to pain in her right wrist, was suspicious till even a few hours before the match. However, she did take the court taking into account that it would be a great experience for Sunitha.

 

The Indian duo started in a whirlwind manner, twice smashing the Russians in first and third games. Both of them broke Dinara’s serve in the first game and after that Sunitha held her serve to go 2-0 up.  The Russians continued to make mistakes, the Indians astonished them with a second consecutive break on Kuznetsova’s serve to go up 3-0. But that’s where all came to an end, as Kuznetsova and Safina re-grouped themselves; they won the next four games successively and twice broke the Indians to get their breaks back.

 

The Russians first broke Sania and then Sunitha to reach parity. Kuznetsova held her serve and Sania as well to make it 4-4. But afterwards, Sunitha lost her serve to lose the set in 43 minutes. In the second set, both duos held their serves to make it 1-1. Then Indians cracked Dinara’s serve to get the vital break. Kuznetsova lost her serve again to proffer the Indians a 3-2 lead. Indians appeared in control at 4-2 but wasted the lead. The Russians stepped-up and won the next four games in a row to conclude the second set in 42 minutes.