The Indian challenge in the WTA Indian Open came to an end with Sania Mirza and Mary Pierce bowing out in the quarter-finals of the doubles competition in Hyderabad on Thursday night.
The Indo-French pair lost to Elena Likhovtseva of Russia and Iroda Tulyaganova of Uzbekistan 3-6, 6-1, 6-4.
In ther semi-finals, the winners meet Katalin Marosi of Hungary and Jelena Kostanic of Croatia, who trounced Penetta of Italy and Andreea Vanc of Romania 6-4, 6-1.
In another quarter-final, the third seeded duo of Evgenia Koulikovskaya of Russia and Tatiana Poutchek of Belarus beat Yulia Beygelzimer of Ukraine) and Ananstassia Rodionova of Russia 6-3, 6-3.
They will play Li Ting and Tian Tian Sun of China, who beat Trudi Musgrave of Australia and Thailand's Tamarine Tanasugam 6-1, 6-3.