China Open: Sania Mirza-Nuria Llagostera Vives pair loses to Russian combo

BEIJING: India's Sania Mirza and Spain's Nuria Llagostera Vives - seeded fourth in the women's doubles event of the China Open - failed to carry their early form into the final, falling to the third-seeded Russian combine of Elena Vesnina and Ekaterina Makarova 5-7, 5-7 on a chilly night at the Olympic Grounds facility.

At the end of the 95-minute encounter, the Russian pair were richer by $290,800 and 1000 WTA ranking points, while Sania and Nuria settled for $145,445 and 700 points.

The Indo-Spanish pair started well, breaking Vesnina in the opening game of the match to take a 3-1 lead. At this point, the fifth-seeds looked good as team, showing that their coordination extended beyond their ice-blue tennis skirts.
If Sania called the shots from the back of the court, Nuria was quick and sharp at the net, dissecting and dominating.

The Russians then had little choice but to dig in and they responded magnificently with Makarova leading the way with some powerful hitting from the back of the court that saw the third seeds reel off four games in a row to take a 4-3 lead.

Sania and Nuria then had a chance to close out the set in the tenth game with Sania serving, but that was not to be as the 25-year-old Hyderbadi was broken at 30.

Nuria, 32 from Mallorca, who posed in the nude for Spanish magazine Interviu four summers ago in a bid to attract sponsors, was broken in the 12th game, the break finally punctuating the roller-coaster first set.

Vesnina and Makarova seemed to carry the advantage into the second set, storming to a 4-0 lead. With their backs to the wall, the fifth seeds fought back superbly to level scores at 4-4. The next three games went with serve before Sania was broken in the 12th game.