Final glory eludes Sania-Bethanie at Stuttgart

Sania Mirza and Bethanie Mattek-Sands will have to wait for their third title of the season as they ended runners-up at the WTA Porsche Tennis Grand Prix after losing the summit clash to Sabine Lisicki and Mona Barthel, in Stuttgart on Sunday.

Playing their third final of the season, the unseeded Indo-American pair lost 4-6, 5-7 in one hour and 33 minutes to the local favourites, who were unseeded wild card entrants.

Sania and Bethanie had won Brisbane and Dubai events earlier this year.

With this result, Sania and Bethanie earned 320 ranking points each and split euro 17,046 as prize money.

The Indo-American pair had their chances in the match -- earning four break chances in the opening set -- but could convert none. They saved two chances but one break of serve was enough to hand the advantage to their rivals.

In the second set they trailed 1-3 and could have levelled the scores in the sixth game but they squandered their fifth chance of the set to allow the Germans go ahead 4-2.

Finally, they succeeded in converting one break point and made it 4-4, raising hopes of a turnaround.

With two holds, it was 5-5 but Mona and Sabine came from nowhere to get a break in the 11th game and served out the match in the next game.

Photograph: Julian Finney/Getty Images