NEW YORK: India's teenage tennis star Sania Mirza was ousted from the US Open, when she and her South African partner Liezel Huber were defeated in the third round of the women's doubles event.
Sania and Huber, seeded 11th, lost 6-3, 3-6, 5-7 to the sixth seeded pair of Kveta Peschke of the Czech Republic and Francesca Schiavone of Italy at Flushing Meadows here on Monday.
The two had made it to the third round of the doubles event after beating France's Stephanie Cohen-Aloro and Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez of Spain 6-0 6-3 in the second round and an American pair of Angela Haynes and Neha Uberoi 6-4, 6-0 in the first round.
It was the more experienced Schiavone who had proved Sania's undoing in the women's singles.
The Indian ace lost the second round match to 14th seeded Italian 7-5, 1-6, 2-6, Thursday.
The 19-year-old Sania had beaten experienced Croat Karolina Sprem 6-4, 6-2 in 75 minutes in her opening singles match last week, in what was considered as one of her best wins of the year.
Sania had lost the mixed doubles battle in the first round itself. Sania and her partner Pavel Vizner of the Czech Republic went down fighting 2-6, 6-3, 7-10 to Katarina Srebotnik of Slovania and Nenad Zimonjic of Serbia and Montenegro.
The Hyderabad girl became the first Indian woman to reach the women's singles fourth round at her first US Open in 2005.
She lost to Maria Sharapova of Russia in the pre-quarterfinals in the singles, but could not go beyond the first round in the doubles.
