Sania, Kostanic crash out

Bangalore, Feb (UNI) In a major upset ace tennis star Sania Mirza, fourth seeded Jelena Kostanic Tosic of Croatia were ousted even as defending champion Mara Santangelo of Italy entered semifinal of the Sony Ericsson International, sony Ericsson WTA Tournament here today.

While second seeded Sania was shown door by debtunant Yaroslava Shvedova of Russia 6-7 (2), 6-4, 6-4, Kostanic was given packing order by unseeded Olga Savchuk of Ukrain by straight sets 6-3, 6-4.

In the semifinals Santangelo will meet Savchuk, while Yaroslava Shvedova would clash with Tzipora Obziler of Israel, who earlier defeated Melinda Czink of Hungary 6-4, 7-6 (3) to enter last four stage.

With this win Obziler, ranked 117, joined two other Israeli's who are in top 100 club.

Maria Santangelo had cakewalk over Yurika Sema of Japan 6-1, 6-4.

Olga Savchuk, ranked 153 defeated low ranked (78) Kostanic in straight sets within 50 minutes. Right from the beginning the Ukrainian had an upper hand. Even before Kostanic could warm up, she had taken a lead of 5-0. After few more games, the first set ended 6-3. The second set was evenly poised at 3-3, but Savchuk outplayed Kostanic through powerful shots and made it to the last four.

Results: Singles: (Quarter Finals) Yaroslava Shvedova (Rus) bt Sania Mirza (Ind) 6-7 (2-7), 6-4, 6-4 Tzipora Obziler (Isr) bt Melinda Czink (Hun) 6-4, 7-6 (7-3) Mara Santangelo (Ita) bt Yurika Sema (Jpn) 6-1, 6-4 Olga Savchuk (Ukr) bt Jelena Kostanic Tosic (Cro) 6-3, 6-4 Doubles: (Semifinals): Yung-Jan Chan (Tpe)/ Chia-Jung Chuang (Tpe) bt Jarmila Gajdosova (Svk)/ Christina Horiatopoulos (Aus) 6-3, 6-2 (Eds: pick up suitably from earlier series).

UNI