Tokyo: Indian women’s doubles pair of Ankita Raina and Sania Mirza crashed out of the Tokyo Olympics losing their opening round fixture 6-0, 7-6, 10-8 in one hour and 33 minutes to Ukrainian sisters Lyudmyla Kichenok and Nadiia Kichenok on Sunday.
Partnering for the first time, the Indian duo won the first set comfortably but the Kichenok sisters came back strongly to make scores even in the next. However, the tie-breaker went neck-to-neck before the Sania-Ankita duo lost two match points to bow out.
Playing Sunday’s match, Sania competed in her fourth Olympics while it was a debut for Ankita. India’s lone hope in tennis at the Tokyo Olympics now remains on men’s singles star Sumit Nagal who outclassed Uzbekistan’s Denis Istomin 6-4, 6-7, 6-4 in his first-round match on Saturday. Nagal will play World No. 2 Daniil Medvedev next.
The Ukrainian sisters will next play either Croatian Donna Vekic and Darija Jurak or American Alison Riske and Nicole Melichar.
