Sania-Bethanie knocked out of Madrid Open

Sania Mirza and her American doubles 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.

Sania and Bethanie converted just two of the eight break chances they had against their rivals and dropped their serve on six occasions.

Sania and her partner shared 12,000 euro 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 -- to tune up their game on the red clay.

The French Open will commence on May 26.