Sydney: Sania Mirza and Cara Black began their 2014 campaign with a shock first round defeat against wild card pair of Jarmila Gajdosova and Ajlaat Tomljanovic at the WTA Apia International, here today.
The third seeded Indo-Zimbabwean pair suffered a tame 3-6 2-6 defeat in under an hour contest against the Australian-Croatian combination.
Sania and Cara, who ended the 2013 season by winning back-to-back titles in Japan and China, could convert just one of the six break chances they got while dropped their service games twice in each set.
Jarmila and Ajlaat hit four aces to one of their rival and committed one double faults to three of Sania and Cara.
The third seeds won 38 points while the wild card pair 57
Sania and Cara will now compete at the first Grand Slam, the Australian Open, from Monday.
