Sania Mirza breaks into top-30 in WTA rankings

New Delhi, August 6: Sania Mirza added another milestone to her growing list of records by breaking into top-30 in world rankings on Monday, thanks to her amazing run in recent weeks on the US hard courts.

The 20-year-old Indian made it to the quarter-finals at the $1.3-million Acura Classic women's tennis event in San Diego last week, which enabled her to move up one place to 30th on the latest WTA Tour ranking list.

The Hyderabadi girl lost in straight sets to eventual winner and world no. 2 Maria Sharapova, but the performance fetched her 110 points, which improved on her career-best ranking.

Also making a splash was Rohan Bopanna who became the first Indian male player since Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi to break into the top-100 in doubles rankings.

Sania becomes the first Indian, man or woman, to be in the top-30 after Ramesh Krishnan who was ranked 23 in 1987.

Sania, whose career earnings now stand at $827,476, also retained her doubles ranking of 26 despite a first round loss at San Diego.

Live it up like Sania

"It will be more of a personal achievement if I break into the top-30," Sania had said last week.

"As long as I keep improving and play good tennis, I feel that in the long run, the rankings will take care of themselves."

She was entered in the main draw of the $600,000 East West Bank Classic at Los Angeles this week, and faces a qualifier in the first round.

Sania, placed in the second quarter of the 64-size draw, has the prospects of clashing with former world no. 1 Martina Hingis, seeded seventh for the week.

Sharapova, top seed, was also in the same half of the draw that also featured number 9, Nadia Petrova.

Bopanna, who won a third successive title in Spain with Pakistan's Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi on Sunday, jumped nine places to be ranked 92 in ATP doubles individual rankings.

Bopanna and Qureshi added the title at $125,000 ATP Challenger event in Segovia, Spain, to their triumphs at Manchester and Nottingham on grass on the previous weeks.

"We are combining well and are definitely planning to play much more together, especially ATP Tour events," Bopanna said.

For the 27-year-old Indian, it was his fourth title of the season, having won in Dublin, Ireland, with Austrian Adam Feeney on indoor carpet early last month.

Bopanna, however, dropped seven places in singles to be 222 but was still the highest ranked Indian.

Prakash Amritraj at 268, a slip of six rungs, and Karan Rastogi at 340 were the next best Indians.

American-Indian Sunitha Rao leaped 25 places to 218 while Shikha Uberoi (33), Rushmi Chakravarthi (384), Tara Iyer (410), Isha Lakhani (442) and Ankita Bhambri (496) were the other Indian women in the top-500.

Agencies>