Melbourne: India's only hope in the main draw of the Australian open Sania Mirza came out a cropper after she crashed to a straight sets defeat to Arevana Rezai of France in the first round of the Australian Open at Melbourne.

Rezai the 27th seed made short work of the unseeded Indian Sania Mirza 6-4,6-2 in an hour and 10 minutes to book her place in the second round. The match was scheduled to take place yesterday but was canceled due to incessant rain.

Sania is seeded 10th in the doubles event with her Spanish partner Virginia Ruano Pascaul and will meet the unseeded pair of Kimiko Date Krumm of Japan and Yayuk Basuki of Indonesia.
 
With Sania's defeat India's interest in the singles event in both men's and women's draw ended. As many as 5 Indian's will be seen in action in the men's doubles event with Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi who are both seeded in the top four leading the pack.

Rohan Bopanna will partner Pakistan's Aisem Quireshi while India's number 1 singles player Somdev Devvarman will partner Prakash Amrtiraj.