Sania storms into quater-finals of Tashkent Open

Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Oct 5 (UNI) Sania Mirza overcame a stiff challenge from Hana Sromova of the Czech Republic to win her second round match 6-4, 7-5 and stormed into the quarter-finals of the Tashkent Open here today.

The third seeded Indian, who had an easy outing in the first round yesterday, was not at her elements today and made many unforced errors against the unheralded rival.

After some initial jitters, Sania seemed to have the game under her control when she served for the first set 5-2 up. But, she lost that game after five deuces, wasting two set points.

But, the Hyderabadi who turns 20 next month, made no mistake when serving for the set the second time around.

Sania' inconsistency continued to plague her in the second set and after an early break, she found herself 2-5 down and Sromova had three set points before being broken in the eighth game.

That brought Sania back in the second set and the forehand winners flowed a bit more easily as she won the last five games for the match which was delayed for more than two hours due to rain.

The world number 55 Indian will now meet six seed Olga Poutchkova of Russia tomorrow.

''I'm just happy to go through. I started playing better in the second set but I was lucky,'' Sania said later.

''She (Sromova) had so many set points. It could have gone either way.'' Asked about her quarter-final match against Poutchkova, Sania said, ''It's going to be a good match. She's one of the players I've known longest, five-six years and we play a similar kind of game.'' The two have never met before in a Tour match.

This will be Sania's third straight quarter-final appearance, after her semi-final showing at Sunfeast Open in Kolkata and the quarter-finals in Korea Open where she lost to Virgina Pascual of Spain after shocking former world number one Martina Hingis of Switzerland.

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