Sania Mirza and her American partner Bethanie Mattek-Sands made an early exit from the Madrid Open after losing their second round match in straight sets to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Lucie Safarova.
The fifth-seeded Indo-American pair lost 5-7, 1-6 to the unseeded Russian-Czech pair in one hour and 10 minutes in the second round of the clay court event, which carries a total purse of 4,033,254 euros.
Sania and Bethanie could convert just two of the eight break chances they had against their opponents while dropping their serve on six occasions.
Sania and her partner shared 12,000 euros as prize money and earned 140 ranking points each.
Before the next Grand Slam of the season, the French Open, Sania and Bethanie have two more tournaments — Rome and Brussels — in which to tune up their game on the red clay.
The Roland Garros Grand Slam is slated to begin from May 26.