Although tennis star Sania Mirza enjoyed her first doubles victory of the season at the Morocco Open earlier this week, she exited the Istanbul Cup today in the first round in a singles match-up against American Meghann Shaughnessy.

Seeded eighth in the competition, Mirza fell to Shaughnessy in two sets (4-6, 3-6) that lasted under ninety minutes. This upset comes after another disappointing first-round singles loss for the Indian athlete in the Morocco Open to Maria Emilia Salerni of Argentina. Coming off of a highly-publicized knee injury that lasted nearly three months, Mirza commented after the loss to Salerni that “it was frustrating to be there knowing what I wanted to do, but not being able to execute like before the injury. But that’s what lack of match play will do. I knew I’d be quite rusty and wouldn’t be anywhere close to what I wanted.”

Despite her stunning loss in Fes, Mirza quickly offset the defeat when she attained the doubles crown alongside American Vania King in the same tournament, a victory that represents her fourth WTA title and her first career title outside of India.

With Mirza’s loss to Shaughnessy in the Istanbul Cup coming just seven days after her individual upset to Salerni and three days after her explosive win with King, it appears that Mirza’s doubles success will not–for the time being–translate into success in her singles pairings.

Mirza and her fans continue to remain hopeful about future competitions, with the tennis celebrity’s candid blog offering avid supporters additional information about matches and the opportunity to hear from the star herself.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007 at 4:49 pm and is filed under Sania Mirza. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.