Sania Mirza suffers crushing defeat to Jankovic in Doha

It was always going to be a tough match for Indian tennis star Sania Mirza against 5th Jelena Jankovic, but she would have definitely hoped to put on a better showing as she was soundly hammered 6-0, 6-1 in the second round of the Qatar Ladies Open in Doha.

Sania’s poor serving in the second set of her first round encounter yesterday seemed to spill over into today as she managed to land only 26% of her first serves in the opening set. While she did get away with it against her young, inexperienced opponent yesterday, Jankovic proved to be a vastly different kettle of fish and did not let the opportunity go by winning 13 of 19 points on the Mirza serve to break thrice and win the first set to love in just 28 minutes.

The second set started off similar to the first with Mirza being broken in her first service game and with her down 0-3 15-40, a double-bagel scoreline looked on the cards. Fortunately for the Indian, she did manage to win four consecutive points to avoid the embarrassment, although that mattered little as she was broken in her next service game as well to allow Jankovic to serve for the match. The former world no.1 duly completed the assignment at hand, wrapping up the win in just over an hour.

Jankovic will now play Klara Zakopalova in the quarterfinals. Zakopalova scored an upset 6-2, 6-1 win over Australian Open finalist, Li Na.

Sania Mirza and her doubles partner Elena Vesnina, with whom she reached the quarterfinals in Dubai last week, will open their campaign later tonight against the Spanish-Romanian pair of Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez and Monica Niculescu.