adminCollin Matiza Sports Editor
CARA Black of Zimbabwe and her Indian partner Sania Mirza are out of the running for the women’s doubles title at the French Open tennis tournament at Roland Garros in Paris.
Black and Mirza, who were seeded fifth at the second Grand Slam of the year, finally met their match at this red claycourt tournament where they fell in the quarter-finals to the top seeded pair of Su-Wei Hsieh of Taiwan and China’s Shuai Peng yesterday.
According to reports from Roland Garros, Black and Mirza played some brilliant tennis yesterday as they stretched their much-fancied opponents to three sets before going down 2-6, 6-3, 3-6 in a protracted match which lasted exactly two hours.
The first set saw Hsieh and Peng coming out with their guns blazing as they took 38 minutes to win it 6-2.
But Black and Mirza refused to be intimidated as they lifted their game in the second set, winning it 6-3 in 37 minutes to stretch the match into the third and final set.
Black and Mirza gave as good as they got in the third and final set, matching their top-seeded opponents in every aspect of the game but they finally surrendered it 3-6 after 45 minutes of some exhilarating tennis in this set which kept the crowd spellbound.
Yesterday’s defeat to Hsieh and Peng, however, dashed Black and Mirza’s dreams of winning their first Grand Slam title together since they began playing together as a team towards the end of last season.
Online Reporter