Sania Mirza and her South African partner Liezel Huber went down fighting to the US-Italian pair of Mashona Washington and Tathiana Garbin in the doubles quarter-finals at the $600,000 WTA Tier II tournament in Paris.
The Indo-South African pair lost 7-6 (8/6), 3-6, 6-7 (5/7) after a little over two hours.
Sania and Liezel started off well, breaking their opponents twice in the first set but lost their way and allowed Tathiana and Mashona to come back. The US-Italian pair broke back twice and took the set to tie break.
The Indo-South African pair won the tie-breaker but could not seize the momentum and Tathiana and Mashona stormed through the second set, breaking their opponents thrice before finishing it off with a 6-3 win.
The see-saw match than went into the third set which followed the pattern of the first, with both pairs breaking each other twice. It was hard to pick the winner at that time and the tension began to show on the players as well, who questioned several line calls by the umpire.
The set went into tie-break, which Tathiana and Mashona won.
The long battle had clearly taken its toll on the Sania-Leizel pair, which ultimately surrendered to their unseeded opponents.
In the semi-finals, Tathiana and Mashona will now take on France's Emilie Loit and Czech Kveta Peschke, who beat the Russian pair of Vera Dushevina and Dinara Safina 6-4, 6-2.
Sania had earlier bowed out of the singles competition, losing her second round match to local favourite Tatiana Golovin and the doubles loss yesterday ended the Indian ace's campaign at the tier II event.
In other matches, Australian Open champion Amelie Mauresmo stormed into the singles semi-finals, beating Russian Dinara Safina 6-2, 6-2. Another local favourite Mary Pierce beat compatriot Emilie Loit 7-6(6), 7-6(4) to join Mauresmo in the semi-finals.
While Mauresmo will take on Golovin, Pierce will square off against Swiss Patty Schnyder.
