Sania Mirza's woeful run of form continued as the Indian ace crashed out of the WTA Bank of the West Classic tournament after a straight sets defeat in the opening round at the hands of British qualifier Anne Keothavong in Stanford on Tuesday night.
The world number 33 Sania went down 6-7 (4), 1-6 to 83rd ranked Keothavong in a one-hour-twenty-minute contest of the Tier II US $ 600,000 event.
Sania, who has been battling injuries and poor form this year, was playing Keothavong for the first time and both the players broke each other once in the opening set before the Briton seized the set in the tie-breaker.
If the first set was hard-fought, the second set turned out to be exactly the opposite with Sania hardly giving a fight to her lower-ranked opponent.
Keothavong broke Sania thrice before racing away with the set and the match to set up a second-round clash with sixth seed Marion Bartoli of France.
The duo will open their campaign against the Czech pair of Eva Hrdinova and Vladimira Uhlirova.