Birmingham, England - Sania Mirza admitted she was feeling the heat after reaching the third round of a WTA Tour event for the first time in eight months.
The Indian star has made a confident start to the grass-court season at the DFS Classic here and was due to face American qualifier Meilen Tu here on Thursday with a quarterfinal place at stake.
That objective should be well within her grasp after she overcame fitness worries, rain-sodden conditions and American Shenay Perry in her second round clash on Wednesday.
Mirza, who has been struggling with back problems this year, was in decent enough shape against the world number 72 to underline her considerable potential on grass with a 7-5, 6-7 (5/7), 6-3 victory.
The Indian put on a display of uninhibited flat hitting, which causes the ball to stay down lower on this surface, making it a potent threat, and she was unafraid to take risks on the big points.
Mirza carries a huge weight of expectation on her shoulders after becoming the first Indian to win a WTA tournament, in her home city of Hyderabad last year.
"After last year there has been a lot of pressure on me," she said. "And of course people expect me to do a lot better than I did last year.
"I am going to take it one at a time and not worry about Wimbledon, or even next week. I only want to worry about tomorrow.
"But pressure is growing by the day. People expect me to do better and it's part and parcel of my life and I have to learn how to block everything out."
In conditions which made serve more important, Mirza secured the only break of the first set at the psychologically crucial moment in the eleventh game, and when she broke to lead 2-1 and 3-1 in the second set, seemed well on her way.
But as in her first round win over Alona Bondarenko, she seemed to allow her mind to waver a little, while Perry developed more rhythm with an intelligent game in which she mixed sliced drives skillfully in with her routine topspin, and sometimes made ambushing net attacks.
Even then Perry seemed to be heading for defeat for she followed her break to 3-3 by double-faulting to go 3-4 and hurled down her racket and broke it.
She escaped a code violation warning for that, and also escaped with the set on a tiebreak after Mirza over-hit a backhand to miss her point for 5-3.
But Mirza played more steadily throughout the third set, breaking to lead 4-2 and then holding her advantage until the end.
"The court was a bit different from that in my opening round," she said. "The rain made the conditions heavier and harder to keep your focus.
"I tried to finish it too early in the second set - I was a little bit impatient. But I knew I had to hang on to my service games because she served so well, and after this I did that."
Source: http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=6&click_id=4&art_id=qw1150335904828S163
No comments:
Post a Comment