Mirza-Hingis Slam dream ends in French Open

Top seeds Martina Hingis and Sania Mirza saw their hopes of holding all four Grand Slam women's doubles titles at the same time come to a shattering end on Sunday.

Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis were rusty against their unseeded Czech rivals and could not hold their serve five times in the match, including four in the second set.

Sania Mirza and her partner, Martina Hingis, made a shock exit from the women’s doubles competition in the French Open here today. Bidding to become the first team to hold all four majors simultaneously since Serena and Venus Williams in 2010, Hingis and Mirza slumped to a shock 6-3, 6-2 loss to Czech pair Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova in the third round.

Sania and Hingis, who were coming into the Grand Slam tournament after their Australian Open triumph earlier this year, were rusty against their unseeded Czech rivals and could not hold their serve five times in the match, including four in the second set.

Sania and Hingis gave away a break point to their opponents to lose the first set 3-6. They also began the second set on a poor note as they failed to hold their first two serves to trail 0-4.

The Indo-Swiss pair fought back by breaking their opponents’ serve in the fifth game to make it 1-4 but again failed to hold onto their own in the next game to trail 1-5.

The Czech combo served for the match but Sania and Hingis were yet to throw in the rowel and broke their opponents’ serve to make it 2-5.

But their was not be any further fightback from the Indo-Swiss duo as they yet again failed to hold onto their serve and lost the second set 2-6 to end the match in disappointment.

With today’s loss, Sania and Hingis failed to realise their hopes of winning four Grand Slam titles on the trot.

They had won Wimbledon and US Open doubles titles in 2015 and the Australian Open in 2016, the season’s first Grand Slam in January.