Mirza Into Quarters at WTA Tashkent
Posted on October 6, 2006TASHKENT, Uzbekistan -- Sania Mirza reached her third consecutive Sony Ericsson WTA Tour quarterfinal Thursday at the Tashkent Open 2006. The Indian teen eliminated Hana Sromova, 64 75, to set up a first meeting with Olga Poutchkova.
After suffering through a drought earlier this year, world No.55 Mirza returned to her winning ways last month when reaching her first Tour semifinal of the season at Kolkata. A week later, she defeated former world No.1 Martina Hingis en route to the Seoul quarterfinals.
"I'm just happy to go through," Mirza said. "I started playing better in the second set but I was lucky. She (Sromova) had so many set points. It could have gone either way."
After some initial jitters, Mirza seemed to have the match under control when she served for the first set at 5-2. But she lost the game, after five deuces, wasting two set points. She made no mistake when serving for the set the second time but remained inconsistent in the second set.
After an early break, Mirza found herself down 5-2 and Sromova had three set points before being broken in the eighth game. That gave Mirza a boost of confidence as she worked her way back into the match. Her next opponent, Poutchkova, is coming off a 75 61 victory over Olivia Sanchez.
"It's going to be a good match," said Mirza. "She's one of the players I've known longest, five or six years, and we play a similar kind of game."
Poutchkova was leading Sanchez 75 4-1 when a light drizzle forced the players off court. When they returned two hours and 10 minutes later, Poutchkova wasted no time to ice the victory.
"I was pretty impressed with the way I played those last two games," said the 19-year-old Russian, who reached a new career high (No.58) last week after her third consecutive Tour quarterfinal at Guangzhou.
In the top half, No.1 seed Maria Elena Camerin will play Victoria Azarenka, who defeated qualifier Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia 64 64 in an hour, 36 minutes on Thursday. Sun Tiantian, a 64 64 victor over Tatiana Poutchek, will play Anastassia Rodionova in her quarterfinal.
-- WTA
After suffering through a drought earlier this year, world No.55 Mirza returned to her winning ways last month when reaching her first Tour semifinal of the season at Kolkata. A week later, she defeated former world No.1 Martina Hingis en route to the Seoul quarterfinals.
"I'm just happy to go through," Mirza said. "I started playing better in the second set but I was lucky. She (Sromova) had so many set points. It could have gone either way."
After some initial jitters, Mirza seemed to have the match under control when she served for the first set at 5-2. But she lost the game, after five deuces, wasting two set points. She made no mistake when serving for the set the second time but remained inconsistent in the second set.
After an early break, Mirza found herself down 5-2 and Sromova had three set points before being broken in the eighth game. That gave Mirza a boost of confidence as she worked her way back into the match. Her next opponent, Poutchkova, is coming off a 75 61 victory over Olivia Sanchez.
"It's going to be a good match," said Mirza. "She's one of the players I've known longest, five or six years, and we play a similar kind of game."
Poutchkova was leading Sanchez 75 4-1 when a light drizzle forced the players off court. When they returned two hours and 10 minutes later, Poutchkova wasted no time to ice the victory.
"I was pretty impressed with the way I played those last two games," said the 19-year-old Russian, who reached a new career high (No.58) last week after her third consecutive Tour quarterfinal at Guangzhou.
In the top half, No.1 seed Maria Elena Camerin will play Victoria Azarenka, who defeated qualifier Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia 64 64 in an hour, 36 minutes on Thursday. Sun Tiantian, a 64 64 victor over Tatiana Poutchek, will play Anastassia Rodionova in her quarterfinal.
-- WTA