BEIJING: Sania Mirza and her doubles partner Shuai Peng's campaign in the China Open ended after they suffered a 6-2, 1-6, 5-10 defeat in the semifinal to Martina Hingis and Chan Yung-jan here today.
Swiss veteran Hingis and her her Taiwanese partner will take on Timea Babos and Andrea Hlavackova in the final.
Incidentally, Mirza and Peng had lost in the semifinal stage last week to the same opponents, and they went on to win the title on that occasion. While this Mirza and Peng lost in the Super Tiebreak, they went down in straight sets last week.
After comfortably winning the first set, they slumped to a defeat.
Yesterday, the third-seeded Indo-Chinese duo had defeated fifth seeded Barbara Strýcová and Katerina Siniaková of Czechoslovakia 4-6, 6-2, 10-7 in the quarterfinals.
In the other doubles semifinal, Hungarian-Czech duo of Babos and Hlavackova defeated Ekaterina Makarova and Elina Vesnina 7-5, 6-4, 10-8 in a contest that went right down to the wire.
In the singles competition at the WTA Premier Mandatory tournament, Simona Halep advanced to the final by beating Jelena Ostapenko 6-2, 6-4. The win helped Halep become the new World No. 1 and the fifth top-ranked player this year on the women's tour.