By Indo-Asian News Service
London, June 28 (IANS) Indian tennis ace Sania Mirza Thursday crashed out of the Wimbledon Championships when she lost 2-6, 2-6 to 11th seed Nadia Petrova of Russia. Leander Paes, however, kept the Indian flag flying.
Paes and Martin Damm of Czech Republic, seeded fifth, defeated Chris Haggard of South Africa and Marcin Matkowski of Poland 7-6 (4), 6-3, 7-5.
Paes and Damm will now play the winners of the match between James Auckland of England and Australian Stephen Huss and Ilia Bozoljac of Serbia and Czech Republic’s Dick Norman.
Even the loud support from the Indians in the stands failed to inspire Sania, who made many errors to crash out quickly.
The 20-year-old Indian has never advanced beyond the second round at Wimbledon. She was beaten in the opening round last year but had made it to the second round in 2005.
Petrova, 25, is ranked 11 in the world, 33 places above Sania, and her best performance at Wimbledon has been a quarterfinal appearance in 2005. Petrova has also reached the quarterfinals of the Australian Open and US Open but has never progressed beyond the last eight at any of the grand slam events.
The match lasted just over an hour as the Russian attacked the net with gusto and put the Indian under pressure right from the start. Sania had 18 unforced errors to Petrova’s 17 but the Russian put her experience to good use by winning the crucial points to breeze to a straight sets win.
Sania has also entered the women’s doubles, where she is partnering Sahar Peer of Israel, and mixed doubles competition, in which she is paired with compatriot Mahesh Bhupathi.
Petrova will now play the winner of the encounter between Tatiana Perebiynis of Ukraine and Virginia Ruano Pascual of Spain.