Dubai Tennis Championships: Sania Mirza-Lucie Hradecka knocked out in semi-finals after narrow loss

Indian tennis ace Sania Mirza and her partner Lucie Hradecka of the Czech Republic lost in the women’s doubles semi-finals of the Dubai Tennis Championships 2022 on Friday.

Despite winning the first set, Sania Mirza and Lucie Hradecka went down to Latvia’s Jelena Ostapenko and Lyudmyla Kichenok of Ukraine 6-2, 2-6, 10-7 in one hour and 11 minutes.

The Indo-Czech pair started the match swinging to put Jelena Ostapenko and Lyudmyla Kichenok under pressure in the early exchanges. Mirza and Hradecka later resisted the challenge and saved 11 break-points to go 1-0 up.

Ostapenko, who defeated Simona Halep in the singles semi-final earlier in the day, and Kichenok got even in the second set to take the match into the super-tiebreaker.

Ostapenko and Kichenok kept their noses ahead in the decider from the start and punched their tickets to the doubles final.

Ostapenko and Kichenok will take on second seeds Elise Mertens and Veronika Kudermetova in the Dubai Tennis Championships doubles final on Saturday.

Sania Mirza and Lucie Hradecka, who entered the WTA 500 event as wildcards, enjoyed a good run at this year’s tournament.

After defeating Chan Hao-ching of Chinese Taipei and world No. 12 Demi Schuurs of the Netherlands in the round of 16, Mirza and Hradecka defeated Japan’s Shuko Aoyama and Aleksandra Krunic of Serbia in straight sets in the quarter-finals.

Sania Mirza, who won the Dubai Tennis Championships in 2013 with Bethanie Lynn Mattek-Sands, will now be seen in the Doha Open starting from February 25.

Earlier in January, Sania Mirza had made it to the Australian Open 2022 quarter-finals in mixed doubles after crashing out in the first round of women’s doubles. The six-time Grand Slam winner had also announced her decision to retire at the end of the 2022 season.