India’s Sania Mirza and her American doubles partner Madison Keys lost their semifinal match at the WTA Toronto Masters event on Saturday, losing to the all-American team of Coco Gauff and Jessica Pegula 7-5, 7-5.
The duo had reached the semifinal after three hard-fought three-set wins in the earlier rounds.
They beat Alize Cornet and Jil Teichmann 6-4, 3-6, 10-6 in the first match, then got the better of top seeds Veronika Kudermetova and Elise Mertens 6-3, 4-6, 10-8 in the second round. In the quarterfinal they beat Yulia Putintseva and Sofia Kenin 7-5, 3-6, 10-6 to set up a clash against the third seeds.
In the semifinal though, Mirza and Keys were coming up against the French Open finalists and two top 15 players in both the singles and doubles rankings.
Gauff and Pegula would eventually manage to get that decisive extra break of serve over the opponents in both sets to get the job done and go through to the final. Gauff could be set for taking over as the world No 1 in doubles, should she clinch the title.
This was Mirza’s first competition since Wimbledon, where she reached the semifinal of the mixed doubles event - partnering Croatia’s Mate Pavic - for the first time in her career.
The six-time Grand Slam champion had earlier this year announced that this would be her last season on tour.
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