CARA Black bowed out in the second round of the women’s doubles at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, California, in the United States on Monday, the latest setback for the veteran Zimbabwean female tennis player in her comeback to professional tennis.
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The BNP Paribas Open, one of the biggest tennis tournaments outside the four Grand Slam tournaments, got underway last week and will run until next Sunday.
The 34-year-old Black and her Australian partner Anastasia Rodionova’s hopes of advancing further in the tournament ended after they suffered a 6-1, 6-3 straight set defeat to Slovakia’s Daniela Hantuchova and Spain’s Ana Isabel Medina Garrigues to miss out on a place in the quarter-finals.
Black and tennis partner Rodionova went into the tournament hoping to capture their second WTA Tour doubles title of the season after kicking off their 2013 season by winning the ASB Classic in Auckland, Australlia.
The pair’s confidence would have been high ahead of the BNP Paribas Open after reaching the semi-finals of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships in February and would have been hoping to continue with the momentum in California.
Their campaign got off to a great start after knocking out the pair of Serbia’s Kristina Mladenovic and Kazakhstan’s Galina Olegovna Voskoboeva courtesy of a hard-fought 6-4, 7-5 victory.
However, that would be their only victory in the tournament as they met their match in Hantuchova and Garrigues, who were determined to progress further in the tournament.
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Black is one of Zimbabwe’s most decorated female athletes of all time with a total of 10 Grand Slam titles in women’s doubles and mixed doubles combined, including one WTA Tour singles title.
In total Black has won 54 women’s doubles titles.
