Indian tennis ace Sania Mirza and Brazil's Bruno Soares defeated British tennis ace Ross Hutchins and Taiwan's Yung-Jan Chan in the mixed doubles semifinal of the US Open.
Mirza and Soares beat Hutchins and Chan 7-5, 4-6, 10-7 and set up a mixed doubles final clash with America's Abigail Spears and Mexican Santiago Gonzalez. It was a match that Hutchins and Chan let slip from their grasp. They led 5-0 in the first set and had four set points when Chan served at 5-1, but then lost seven games in a row.
Even after that setback the British-Taiwanese duo had plenty of chances to rescue the set. Hutchins in particular might look back on the game when he dropped serve at 5-3 after making two double faults. At 5-5 Chan dropped her serve after leading 40-15 and in the following game Mirza recovered from 0-40 down to take the set, The Independent reported.
The Briton and the Taiwanese fought back well in the second set. They broke Mirza to love to go 3-1 up and recovered from the setback of Hutchins dropping serve when they led 5-3. In the following game they broke serve to level the match, with Chan winning the last two points.
Hutchins, however, served a double fault on the first point of the deciding champions' tie-break and Mirza and Soares were soon 5-0 up. Hutchins and Chan reduced the arrears to 6-5, but Chan's double fault then handed back the initiative to their opponents, who went on to win the tie-break 10-7.
Hutchins said that it was a strange match, adding that he does not think that he has ever played a match like that when one is playing that well and is in such control to then being such a role reversal.
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The Brit said that they played well in the second set, but he said that starting with a double in the champions' tiebreak was poor. He said that the second set had a bad start, especially as it was to Mirza.
Hutchins said that his serve was serve was normally very dominant over Mirza's return, adding that they got back into it, but it was not to be.