Cincinnati:
India's Sania Mirza and her Romanian partner Monica Niculescu crashed out of the USD 2,000,000 Western and Southern Financial Group Women's Open tennis championships after going down to Victoria Azarenka and Maria Kirikenko in the doubles quarterfinal here on Saturday.
Mirza and Niculescu put up a spirited fight of late but the Belarusian-Russian combo foiled their bid with 2-6, 5-7 scoreline.
The unseeded Indo-Romanian pair had pulled off a big upset by beating the fifth seed, Wimbledon champion pair of American Vania King and Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan in the second round of the tournament.
Azarenka and Kirilenko now play second seeds Gisela Dulko of Argentina and Flavia Pennetta of Italy in the semifinal.