Sania-Ivan crash out of US Open mixed doubles

Sania Mirza and her Russian partner Ivan Dodig lost in straight sets to Barbora Krejcikova and Marin Draganja in the second round of the mixed doubles category at the US Open tennis tournament here on Sunday.

The top seeded Indo-Russian combination could hardly trouble their Czech-Croatian opponents, going down 3-6, 4-6 in one hour and five minutes.

Barbora and Marin will now take on seventh seeded Americans Coco Vandeweghe and Rajeev Ram in the quarter-finals.

In the opening set, Barbora and Marin clinched the early advantage, forcing a service break in the second game.

They broke the top seeds again in the fourth game to take a 4-0 lead and held on to their advantage to win the first set.

Sania and Ivan started the second set in promising fashion, breaking Barbora and Marin in the second game to take a 2-0 lead.

But the Czech-Croatian pair broke back in the very next game before holding their serve to draw level at 2-2.

They broke Sania and Marin claimed another service break in the seventh game to take the lead.

They took another break in the ninth game to increase their lead to 5-4 before holding their serve to take the set and the match.

--IANS

ajb/lok