An open challenge for comebacks for Hingis, Sania at Sunfeast

Kolkata, Sep 17 (UNI) The Sunfeast Open is going to be a battle for establishing faith in the playing prowess of Indian ace Sania Mirza, now on a slide, and world No 9 Martina Hingis, on a comeback trail, with a possible lip-smacking face-off in the semis as the biggest tennis spectacle of South East Asia gets underway tomorrow.

The tournament is of immense significance for Sania Mirza whose slide from 34 in the world ranking to 70 was a big setback. Her indifferent form has plagued her right from the beginning of this year and with an early exit at Bali she will now be looking forward to the Sunfeast Open to redeem some pride.

Sania Mirza's steep slide down the WTA rankings has been often attributed to the lack of having a regular coach. The constant chop and change have not helped her cause at all.

Sania, seeded fifth, has got an easy opening round outing against a qualifier while top-seeded Hingis would be up against world number 84 Melinda Czink of Hungary. Czink, who had taken the fizz out of the Sunfeast Open last year by conquering crowd favourite Sania in the second round, could be a handful on her day.

In contrast, Sania would face the winner of the first round battle between Russian Galina Voskoboeva and Sandra Kloesel of Germany if she gets past the first round. The Hyderabadi girl would in all likeliness have to face fourth seed French girl Aravane Rezai who is due to take on Indian wild card Ankita Bhambri in the lung-opener.

In contrast, after the Czink zing, Hingis will have to take on in-form and sixth seed Estonian Kaia Kanepi.

Hingis started 2006 as an unranked player thanks to her 3-year absence from the tour. She had a strong start at the year's first grand slam reaching the quarter finals at Flinder's Park eventually losing to Kim Clijsters. It was Clijsters again who stopped Hingis in the quarters at the French Open.

If she was hoping to improve her grand slam record in 2006 - Wimbledon was a disappointment. Hingis fell to Japan's Ai Sugiyama in the third round. And her US Open second round loss capped off what has been an ordinary year in the grand slams giving her an 11 and four win-loss record in 2006 in the big four. And Sunfeast Open is in her scheme of things to turn things around.

Sania will also try to prove a point or two as indifferent form has seen her slip in rankings and drop out of the top three seeds in the Sunfeast Open. She would surely try to do justice to her reputation and hope for the meet to be a turnaround for her.

Second seed Karolina Sprem has a relatively easy draw till the quarters, where she has the chance to meet eighth seed Anastasia Rodionova, while third seed Yuliana Fedak will have it easy till the semi-finals where seventh seed Nicole Pratt will lock horns.

Tatiana Poutchek of Belarus who just returned from a good WTA outing will be her likely opponent in the quarters and she needs to do well to remain in hunt.

Among other Indians, 194-ranked Shikha Uberoi, who has got a wild card, face 132-ranked Czech girl Hana Sromova in the first round.

The other wild card entrant, US-born player of Indian origin Sunitha Rao, has a tough opener as she would be up against seventh seed Nicole Pratt of Australia.

This will also be a comeback for Sunitha Rao, fighting an injury lay-off to get back to her prime. A wildcard in the Open will surely help her in her goals in this matter.

So would be the case of Iroda Tulyaganova, who is making a comeback in her first WTA meet in three years. So there is a lot of expectations around these two. In fact Iroda in her prime was ranked along with the likes of Anastasia Myskina, the winner of the meet last year, and Dinara Safina.

UNI BA SJC DH HT1145