MELBOURNE, Jan 19: When her every action is scrutinised in a country of more than one billion people, India’s Sania Mirza might be expected to choose her words carefully.

But after her narrow 7-6, 6-4 defeat by Venus Williams in the Australian Open third round on Saturday, Sania left the gathered reporters in no doubt as to how she was feeling.

“I’m a little disappointed and tomorrow morning I’m going to wake up and feel even more like crap about it,” she told reporters.

“I felt like I had the first set and should have closed it out at 5-4. But I take a lot of positives out of it. She’s supposed to be one of the biggest hitters of the game, and I was out-hitting her. That’s a very good thing for me.”After breaking Venus, Sania served for the first set at 5-4 but the Wimbledon champion hit back immediately and blasted through the tiebreak.

One break was enough to give eighth seed Venus the second set and a place in the last 16.

Sania had matched the American from the baseline but the former world number one had the distinct edge in the serve department.

“I think we always knew she’s one of the best servers in the game and I’m really not,” Sania stated. “I’m very critical about my game. I think I’m one of the worst servers in the game. If you want me to put it very, you know, matter-of-factly.

“I think I was still able to hold my own. I was able to hold my serve. Yes, of course she came up with the aces when she needed today and I couldn’t.”—Reuters