Thursday, February 15, 2007

Sania Mirza through Sony Ericsson International Quarters

Heavy crowd favorite Sania Mirza playing infront of her home crowd overcame Belarusian Tatiana Poutchek in three sets 3-6, 7-5, 6-2. Sania will play unseeded Yaroslava Shvedova of Russia in the quarter finals.

Tatiana started the match on fire, while a nervous Sania spraying errors all around the court. Tatiana raced to a 5-0 lead with breaks in second and fourth games. At 0-5, Sania won her first service game to get on board, Sania won three consecutive games quickly for 3-5, but that was not enough and Tatiana successfully served out the set to win the first set 6-3.

In the second set, Sania started playing well and raced to a 5-2 lead, but lost 3 consecutive games and allowed her opponent to level the score to 5-5. Sania regrouped to win the next 2 games and set 7-5.

In the deciding set, Sania played much better and overwhelmed her opponent with solid ground strokes. Sania won the deciding set 6-2

"I was spraying everywhere in the first set and even at 5-2 in the second I didn't have the confidence. But I got back my rhythm only in the third set. It's hard to play at home," said Sania.

"I'm playing some of the top players and that's what keeps me going. It builds confidence and in the last six months I'm also working a lot on my fitness. Hope I play better tennis tomorrow when I take on young and talented Shvedova who has a big serve. But for the moment I'm still recovering from that first set," said Sania.

Sania didn't play her best today, but two semi-final appearances in the current year at Hobart and Pattaya City with a 9-3 win-loss record so far this year helped her to find out a way to win eventhough she is not playing her best.

Sania also won her doubles match on Wednesday playing with the top seed Italian Mara Santangelo. The top two seeds won their doubles match against A Amanmuradova of Uzbekistan and Tatiana Poutchek of Belarus

Sania-Mara pair won the match by 6-2, 7-6 (7-4).

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