Melbourne, Jan 16: India's Sania Mirza and her American partner Bethanie Mattek-Sands crashed out in the first round of the women's doubles at the Australian Open tennis, losing to Spaniards Silvia Soler Espinosa and Carla Suarez Navarro 6-7 (4-7) and 3-6 here Wednesday.
The 10th-seeded Indo-US pair just could not jell, though statistically they were not very far from their Spanish opponents. It is just that they could not press home the advantage by not being able to convert more than four of their eight breakpoints whereas the Spaniards clinched all the five they got.
Sania and Mattek-Sands had a great chance of winning the second set after losing the first set tie-break when they led 3-0 but lost the next six games in a reel to bow out of the championships.
In the ultimate analysis, the Spanish pair showed greater consistency in all aspects of the game to subdue Mirza and Mattek-Sands.
