Sania's singles journey ends in round II

New York: Sania Mirza bowed out of the US Open women's singles with a three-set loss to Fransesco Schiavone of Italy in the second round on Thursday.

Much like her Wimbledon loss to Elena Dementieva, Sania started strongly before fading out, losing 7-5 1-6 2-6 to the 14th seed in the year's final Grand Slam at the Flushing

Meadows.

If anything, the Italian proved an even tougher nut to crack than Dementieva while taming Sania in two hours and 20 minutes to advance to the third round.

The first set was a see-saqw battle which saw Schiavone rally from being 1-4 down to go 5-4 up in the first set.

The Hyderabadi girl, however, held her nerves to retain her serve for 5-5 and broke her opponent in the next game by earning triple breakpoints.

Sania appeared to be on a roll as she garnered three set points and rounded off the set in style.

But the second set turned out to be a disaster.

Schiavone broke Sania three times to mark a complete turn around in the match.

Sania had a break of her own but 14 unforced errors including three doublefaults undermined her chances.

An 80 per cent first serve in that second set showed the Italian in regal form.

In the second game of the decider, Sania had five breakpoints but could take none of it.

That was symbolic of the Indian's play as she converted only four of the 15 breakpoints that came her way.

Sania stands to gain 38 WTA Tour points from her first round success and potential second round prize money of US$ 51,000 from the final Grand Slam on the calendar.

But it might still hurt her rankings, which was 54 at the start of the week, as she would be losing 140 points that she had won by reaching the quarterfinals last year.

The Indian, however, will be in action at the Open again later in the day when she combines with Liezel Huber and will take on American pair of Angela Haynes and Neha

Uberoi in the women's doubles first round.

The Indo-South African pair is seeded 11th.

Also, Mahesh Bhupathi, who lost his doubles first round with Xavier Malisse of Belgium on Wednesday, will launch his campaign in the mixed doubles event alongside Paola Suarez of Argentina against Anastassia Rodionova of Russia and Kevin Ulyett of Zimbabwe.

Bhupathi and Malisse were ousted by Leos Friedl of the Czech Republic and Mikhail Youzhny of Russia in the opening round 4-6 4-6.