| Thursday, 26 June 2008 Written by Sally Easton India's tennis idol Sania Mirza could not grab victory against Spain’s Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez, despite coming back from a shocking start to force a thrilling finale, before finally losing out 6-0, 4-6, 9-7 Mirza, seeded 32, lost all the first eight games of the match, as her opponent dominated both the baseline and the net, with timely approaches and a finesse of strokeplay. Mirza looked completely out of sorts. Her ground strokes had court penetration but lacked power and her repertoire of shots was small. The first set slipped away in just 21 minutes and she was making a similar lack of impact in the second. It seemed no amount of "come on Sania" from her army of fans on Court 11 could entice the Indian to win a game, and as she lost her opening serve of the second set, muted sighs of shock from the packed crowd whispered across the court air. At this stage, Mirza offered a half-hearted approach to the net and when this failed, with slumped shoulders, she wore the body language of despondency. Then came the turning point. At 0-2 down, on her own serve, a massive cheer went up as Mirza engineered a 15-0 point, with a bit more of the skill for which she is known. Another cheer went up for 30-0, and when she finally won the game, the volume of approval from the crowd increased still further. Unforced errors started to creep into the 25-year-old Spaniard’s game and soon Martinez Sanchez found herself serving to stay in the second set. What had looked like a walk in the park for her had finally become a tennis match. A beautifully judged cross court lob gave Mirza three set points. She failed to capitalise on these and it took another two pitch-perfect lobs against the 5ft 9ins Martinez Sanchez before Mirza broke the Spanish serve to equal the match. This critical addition to her range of shots had been lacking in the early games. The final set was a tightly-fought affair, in which the Indian clearly found the form that her 69 superior places in the rankings promised. But, having looked so calm and in control early on, it indeed was Martinez Sanchez who held her composure at the end. The deftest of drop shots broke Mirza’s serve to enable the Spaniard to serve out the match.
| Court 11 - Ladies' Singles - 2nd Round | |
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