Friday, February 17, 2006

Sania-Huber enter doubles semis

Bangalore Open: Sania Mirza and her South African partner Liezel Huber have moved into the semi-finals of the doubles event at the Bangalore Open.

The second-seeded pair defeated Silvija Talaja of Croatia and Martina Muller of Germany 7-6, 2-6, 6-4 in the second round.

Sania is now the only Indian left in the tournament after Isha Lakhani also crashed out of the singles.

Sania Mirza, Rushmi Chakravarthi and Ankita Bhambri have already crashed out of the singles.

The Indian challenge in the singles event came to an end when wild-card Isha Lakhani lost to Ukraine's Yuliana Fedak 3-6 3-6 in the second round.

Fedak, world No 117, played a consistent game at the centre court of the Karnataka State Lawn Tennis Association courts and outplayed the world No 480 to advance to the quarter-finals of the WTA Tier-III event.

Lakhani came back strongly after being down 0-2 in the opener and then levelled it 3-3 before running out of steam.

She played well in patches but her opponent was more aggressive and played a more powerful game forcing the Indian on the backfoot.

"It's nice playing here," Fedak said. "It was a tough match than the scoreline suggests."

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