Sania Mirza breeze into second round

Bangalore, Feb 14 (UNI) India's title favourite Sania Mirza began her campaign with a three-set win over Martina Sucha of Slovakia, while top seed Mara Santangelo made a better impact with a straight set win in the first round encounters at the Sony Ericsson International WTA Tennis tournament played at KSLTA stadium here today.

Sania, the world no 46, overcame an indifferent sow in the second set to go past Sucha 6-4, 4-6 and 6-3, while Mara thrashed Shengnan Sun of China 6-2, 7-6(4).

Seeded players continued to fall as third seed Bardina Vasillsa of Russia and eighth seed Brianti Alberta of Italy were ousted in the first round.

Inconsistency creeped yet again as Sania made herself to sweat for over two hours to quell the resistance from Sucha. The Slavakian hit back in the second set taking full advantage of Sania's four double faults and inconsistent return of serves and levelled the set scores. Sania, however, braced herself up and broke her 94th ranked opponent twice to book her berth in the second round.

The decider, lasted more than 60 minutes, both fought hard, but Sania the semifinalist in Pattaya prevailed to wrap up the final game after earning three break points using her strong forehand winners.

In the post-match press conference Sania said, "After Pattaya Open I wanted to change my game plan and it is paying. As I was telling earlier, I am concentrating on each point and each game and each set and this helped me win today".

"I was really under pressure after she won the second set, but I thankfully I could force her to commit mistakes," she said.

(Eds: pick up suitably from earlier series).

UNI