Melbourne, Jan 21 (IANS): Sania Mirza and her Zimbabwean partner Cara Black lost to No.1 seeds Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci of Italy in the quarterfinals of the women's doubles tennis competition at the Australian Open here Tuesday.

The No.6 seeds put up a brave fight and were in with a chance to win the match but in the end lost 2-6, 6-3, 4-6 in an hour and 58 minutes.

After going down tamely in the first set, Sania-Black came back strongly to win the second comfortably.

The Indo-Zimbabwean pair were leading 4-2 in the final set and looked favourites to qualify for the semis, but the Italian team showed why they are the top-ranked team in the tournament by winning four consecutive games to wrap up the match.

The sixth seeds would be disappointed with their performance especially after coming so close. They hit 39 winners to their opponents' 44 but it was the number of unforced errors (24) they made that would be the worrying bit.

Another cause for concern would be their failure to convert break-point opportunities. Sania-Black won 15 break-point chances, same as Errani and Vinci, but managed to convert just six.

The top seeds will now take on the winners of the match between fourth seeds Kveta Peschke-Katarina Srebotnik and the unseeded team of Jarmila Gajdosova and Ajla Tomljanovic.