Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna lost to Venus Williams and Rajeev Ram 6-2, 2-6, 3-10 in the semi-finals of mixed doubles at 2016 Rio Olympics on Saturday. The Indian pair still has a chance to win a bronze medal.
The Indian pair will face Czech Republic's Radek Stepanek and Lucie Hradecka in the bronze medal play-off.
Sania and Bopanna suffered a sudden mid-match slump to fritter away a great opportunity as they lost from a position of strength to Americans Venus and Ram.
"Tough to get over loss like this and find positives out of it. Still have a shot at a medal. Our opponents will also be coming off a loss and that's the only positive. Think we played well in 2nd set as well," Sania told after the loss.
Her teammate Bopanna also said that they were looking forward to the next match. "Weird for us, given that you get to play a match even after a loss. Need a good night's sleep. Still have a shot at a medal, " he said.
Good start
The Indians were cruising at one stage but once Sania's serve was broken in the fourth game of the second set, the tide turned in the favour of the Americans.
Bopanna's game also crumbled under pressure in the match tie-breaker. His strong serve deserted him and his ground strokes also fell apart when it mattered most.
Second set disaster
Venus could not believe that they have won and continued jumping with joy and disbelief after the match was over.
Sania and Bopanna made a strong start as the Indians broke Venus at love in the third game to seize the initiative. Sania then served well to make it 3-1.
Powerful serves from the racquet of Bopanna meant that the Indians only consolidated the break. Bopanna's serves were almost untouchable. The Americans could not find the appropriate returns to his serve.
Venus again struggled and handed a breakpoint to the Indians after losing the forehand battle with Sania. That was saved but the Indians soon had a second chance which got converted when Venus buired a backhand to the net.
Sania served out the set in the eighth with Bopanna finding a cross court backhand winner, bisecting the two Americans.
Rajeev and Venus nosed ahead in the second set when Sania could not pull away her racquet from a Ram return that could have flown out of the courts. That was the second break chance of the game for the Americans.
That break of serve worked like a tonic for Venus and Rajeev as the Americans raced to a 5-2 lead in no time after that and forced a match tie-breaker by breaking the doubles world number one again in the eighth game.
The match-tie-breaker completely belonged to the Americans.
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