JOIN USSania Mirza and Elena Vesnina suffered a crushing 2-6, 1-6 defeat against top seeds Liezel Huber and Lisa Raymond to end runners-up at the WTA Dubai Open here on Saturday.
The second-seeded Indo-Russian pair started well and gave a good fight in the first 30 minutes of the match but were blown away after that.
Sania and Vesnina earned a break chance in the very first game of the match but could capitalise. After that, it was all one-way track as the experienced American duo win in 68 minutes.
Sania had won the Pattaya Open doubles title with Australian Anastasia Rodionova a few weeks back.
On Friday, Sania and Vesnina beat Shuai Peng of China and Chinese Taipei’s Su-Wei Hsieh in a hard-fought battle in the semifinal. The second seeds took an hour and 40 minutes to get the better of their opponents in the super tie-break, 6-2, 6-7 (5-7), 13-11.
While Sania and Vesnina converted as many as five out of the seven break points they got, Hsieh-Peng could convert only three off eight.
Goerges in title round
Unseeded German Julia Goerges enjoyed her third straight win over former world number one Caroline Wozniacki to reach the final of the Dubai tennis championships on Friday.
Goerges will play Agnieszka Radwanska in Saturday’s final after the Pole also beat a former world number one, Jelena Jankovic, 6-2, 2-6, 6-0.
Goerges had a tough, 7-6, 7-5 win over defending champion and third seed Wozniacki in a match full of ups and downs for both players.
The 23-year-old German had set point at 5-3 in the first set but eventually needed a tiebreak to seal it, then rallied from 4-2 down for the second set.
“I didn’t play my best game today. I made way too many unforced errors, and Julia took advantage of it,” said Dane Wozniacki, who lost to Goerges in Stuttgart and Madrid last year. “She didn’t really allow me to get a rhythm. Every time I felt I was back in the game,
I made some unforced errors at very important times, which of course is a bit disappointing, but I can’t do anything about it now.”
Radwanska, the fifth seed, lost her way in the second set against Serbia’s Jankovic, dropping her serve three times. She found her range again in the third set and held her three service games to love.
Both Radwanska and Goerges could reach career-high rankings with victory in the final: Radwanska would move from number six to five, while Goerges would go from 19 to 15.