Eastbourne (England), June 26 (IANS) Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis’s Wimbledon preparations were on Friday cut short when the Indo-Swiss tennis pair was ousted from the $731,000 Eastbourne International after losing their women’s doubles semifinal match in straight sets here.
French-Slovenian combine Caroline Garcia and Katarina Srebotnik bettered the top seeds winning 7-5, 6-4 in an hour and 22 minutes at the Devonshire Park Lawn Tennis Club. The fourth seeds exacted revenge for their only previous meeting when Sania and Martina won on the clay courts of Rome in May.
Caroline and Katarina won the match with five break of serves — two more than their top seeded opponents.
Both pairs were quite jittery when it came to serves as the match saw a total of 11 double faults — with Sania and Martina faulting six times.
Overall, the fourth seeds won 69 of 129 points played in the match which was enough to propel them into the summit clash.
The Eastbourne International is the last women’s warm-up event ahead of Wimbledon, the lone grass court tennis Major tournament.