Sucha stretches Sania

The opponents for both Sania Mirza of India and Martina Sucha of Slovakia were the insects swarming all over, poor line calls and unforced errors.

The opponents for both Sania Mirza of India and Martina Sucha of Slovakia were the insects swarming all over, poor line calls and unforced errors.

After slugging it out for over two hours, Sania carved out a 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 victory and entered the second round of the Sony Ericsson International Bangalore WTA Tour event here today.

Sania now takes on Tatiana Poutchek of Belarus, who ran out a 6-2, 6-0 winner over Meng Yuan of China.

The tournament8217;s No 2 seed and 49th ranked Sania possibly could not have had a better opening round. For, she was made to sweat a lot more than was envisaged.

As long as the ball approached her at waist height and on her forehand, it got the punishment it deserved and Sania the points. She despatched them disdainfully to the forehand corners with amazing regularity, though her control deserted at times.

But the more Sucha, ranked 98 and seeded No. 13 here, kept it on her backhand, Sania appeared to be in all sorts of trouble.

Even as she tried to get behind, she either hit long or netted. Add to it her service problems. Not only the first serve troubled her, she came up numerous double faults too.

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Sucha made the mistake of hitting the ball straight at Sania on occasions she failed to get them on her backhand. That provided Sania more open spaces for winners. But no sooner did Sucha keep the ball wide on both flanks, she had Sania stretching out in vain more often.

This enabled her to claim the second set but even as a fight seemed to be in the offing, her game fell apart in the decider and a plethora of unforced errors saw her wither away faster than she bloomed.

Earlier, Japan8217;s rising star Yurika Sema, ranked 273, stormed into the quarter finals with a 1-6, 6-4, 6-1 victory over 115th-ranked Yulia Beygelzimer of Ukraine.

A bout of cramps to Yulia helped qualifier Yurika8217;s cause.

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Obziler Tzipora of Israel, ranked 117, downed Vasilisa Bardina of Russia 6-1, 6-2, while Australian Alicia Molik put it across Alberta Brianti of Italy 6-4, 6-3.

Alicia had the going easy against Alberta in a match that lasted a little over an hour. The Italian began well in both sets, but could not maintain the tempo as Alicia sailed through making less number of errors among the two.

Late Tuesday night, Shikha Uberoi, the US-based Indian, went down fighting to Shvedova Yaroslava of Russia 3-6, 7-6 6-3, 6-3.

RESULTS

Singles: Alicia Molik Aus bt Alberta Brianti Ita 6-4, 6-3; Yurika Sema Jpn bt Yulia Beygelzimer Ukr 1-6, 6-4, 6-1; Tzipora Obziler Isr bt Vasilisa Bardina Rus 6-1, 6-2; Mara Santangelo Ita bt Shengnan Sun Chn 6-2, 7-6 4; Melinda Czink Hun bt Yung-Jan Chan Tpe 1-6, 7-5, 6-2; Jelena Kostanic Tosic Cro bt Dominika Ciblikova Svk 6-4, 6-1; Sania Mirza Ind bt Martina Sucha Svk 6-4, 4-6, 6-3; Shvedova Yaroslava Rus bt Shikha Uberoi Ind 3-6, 7-6 6-3.