French Open: Top seeds Sania-Soares lose to defending champions in 1st round

Paris: Top seeds Sania Mirza and Bruno Soares of Brazil crashed out in the first round of the mixed doubles event after suffering a shocking straight sets defeat at the hands of unseeded Anna-Lena Groenefeld and Jean-Julien Rojer at the French Open tennis tournament on Thursday, May 28. [caption id=“attachment_1701927” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Top seeds suffer a crushing first-round defeat. File Photo: AP[/caption] Sania and Soares lost 2-6 2-6 in just 56 minutes against the unseeded German-Dutch combination at the Rolland Garros. The top seeds did not have best of starts as Groenefeld and Rojer broke the Indo-Brazilian pair in the their first service game to race to a 3-0 lead in the first set. In fact, the unseeded Groenfeld and Rojer combination were by far the bestter side on the court in all aspects of the game in the opening set. Despite being unseeded, it is worth nothing that Groenfeld and Rojer are in fact the defending champions at the event. The German-Dutch pair made use of four out of the seven break points that came their way, while Sania and Soares duo converted two out of the four chances to hand the first set to their opponents in 28 minutes. The second set was no different as Groenfeld and Rojer looked in total control of the proceedings. The second set went on serves till the fourth game before Groenfeld and Roger broke their opponents in the fifth game to take a 3-2 lead. The German-Dutch pair broke Sania and Soares again in the seventh game and then held on to their serve to pocket the match and a place in the second round, where they will be up against Yung-Jan Chan of Chinese Taipei and John Peers of Australia. PTI