India's hopes to win a title at this year's Australian Open continued till the final day but eventually did not materialise as Sania Mirza and her Croatian partner Ivan Dodig lost to US-Colombian pair of Abigail Spears and Juan Sebastián Cabal 2-6, 4-6 in the final of the mixed doubles at the Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne on Sunday (January 29).
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Spears and Cabal took control of the match early on in the first set and went on to win it 6-2. Mirza and Dodig had an ordinary beginning as the opponents broke their very first two serves of the match to take a 3-0 lead.
The Indo-Croat duo was expected to get back into the game as they did in the semifinals but it was not to be. Spears-Cabal went on to take a 4-0 lead and though Sania-Dodig managed to pull things back somehow to make it 2-5 and had a chance to break Spears to extend the fight in the set, they could not capitalise on the 30-0 lead and lost the first set.
The second set saw the losing duo starting on a tighter note. Dodig managed to hold on to his serve to give his team a 1-0 lead and the duo also broke Cabal's serve and retained its own second serve to make it 3-0. They were leading 4-1 at one time and the match looked set to go down to the wire. But Spears and Cabal had other things in mind as they won five games in a row to win the set 6-4 and with that the title. The Sania-Dodig duo clearly showed signs of pressure as they failed to hold on to their own serves. Dodig also committed two double faults, paving the way for the opponents' victory.
