Australian Open: Sania, Bhupathi lose in quarters

Melbourne, Jan 24 (IANS): It was a bad day in office for India as both Sania Mirza and Mahesh Bhupathi lost their respective mixed doubles quarterfinal matches at Melbourne Park here Thursday. This brings an end to the Indian challenge.

Third seeds Sania Mirza and Bob Bryan crashed out to an unseeded Czech pair.

Fifth seeds Bhupathi and Russian Nadia Petrova were upset by unseeded Australian pairing of Jarmila Gajdosova and Matthew Ebden at the Margaret Court Arena. The fifth seeds lost 3-6, 6-3, 11-13 in one hour and 21 minutes.

After losing the first set, the Indo-Russian pair came back to win the second set getting their first break on their fifth opportunity.

The super tie-break was a neck-and-neck affair which the Australian duo clinched crucially winning all the points on their second serve, maintaining a 100 percent record.

Earlier on the same court, Sania and American partner Bob Bryan, seeded third, were defeated by unseeded Czech duo of Lucie Hradecka and Frantisek Cermak 5-7, 4-6 in one hour and five minutes.

Both pairs broke each other in both the sets. However, the Czech pair broke their opponents that extra one time to win both the sets in the evenly contested match.