The Hindu : Sania has an easy first round

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Dec 10, 2002

Sport

Sport - Tennis

Sania has an easy first round

By Kamesh Srinivasan

Sania Mirza in action against Vittyaviroj of Thailand in the first round of the Asian junior tennis championship at the DLTA Complex in New Delhi, on Monday. Sania won 7-5, 6-1. — Photo: V.V. Krishnan

NEW DELHI DEC. 9. Sania Mirza thrashed Thassha Vittayaviroj of Thailand 7-5, 6-1 in the first round of the GAIL Asian junior tennis championship at the DLTA Complex here on Monday.

The 16-year-old second seed played a delightful all-round game, hitting winners with confidence, and finding the angles to exasperate an opponent, who had stretched her to the third set tie-break the last two times.

Sania is a much different player these days. She has improved on the consistency aspect without compromising on her inclination to attack at the slightest opportunity.

The Hyderabad girl served well, and moved up to the net for sharp volleys. This welcome feature must have been added to her strong game following her doubles success. The only time Sania was discouraged from coming for the volley was when she got a bad call, as the volley was crisp into the corner of the court.

Sania started with two aces and broke Thassha in the sixth game in taking a 4-2 lead. However, she dropped serve immediately with two doublefaults, and dropped serve again in the ninth game when she was serving for the set. Yet, Sania was playing so well, hitting her shots hard and accurately, that there was no fear of things going out of her control. Thassha made things easy by dropping serve in the 12th game, with two doublefaults including one on setpoint.

Into the second set, the Thai was dejected and slipped to 0-4, as she tended to spray her shots. Sania played a loose game in the fifth to drop serve, but tightened the noose quickly to race through with the next two games. The match lasted a mere 55 minutes.

The 60th ranked Sania will take on the 273rd ranked Yi Chen of Chinese Taipei, who had beaten her in their last meeting earlier in the season.

"Considering that I finished the match in straight sets, I am happy. Am not worried about getting broken thrice in the match. I have a 1-1 record with Chen, who runs down everything and retrieves a lot," said Sania.

If she continues to play the way she did this day, Sania may not give much scope for retrieval to her rivals.

Isha to meet Sandhya

In contrast, the top-seeded Isha Lakhani got into a spot of bother after being up by two breaks, leading 3-0 in the first set, against qualifier Mulsap Porntip of Thailand. She also squandered a 5-3 lead, and missed four setpoints in the 12th game.

In the tie-break, the national champion was up 5-3 before allowing the Thai to be on par. Since she was playing with a lot of determination Isha was able to win the points that mattered eventually.

Isha dropped serve in the third game of the second set, but reeled off the next five games, breaking the Thai thrice. She will meet Sandhya Nagaraj in the next round.

Qualifier Marutha Devi did well to oust the eighth-seeded Maya Rosa of Indonesia in straight sets. Marutha took a 4-2 lead, but had to recover twice to take the set into the tie-break. She missed three setpoints at 6-3 in the tie-break, but pulled through thereafter.

Marutha displayed considerable fighting ability to clinch the contest, after being 0-30 in the tenth game of the decider. She will take on wild card Madura Ranganathan in the next round.

In the boys' section, Somdev Dev Varman downed Nihal Advani rather comfortably, while Tushar Liberhan handled the challenge from Punna Vikas with a high degree of assurance. The top-seeded Wang-Cheng Hsieh of Chinese Taipei had it easy as he took on lucky-loser Jitin Bishnoi and so was the case for Divij Sharan as he beat lucky-loser Anshuman Dutta.

The best match, in terms of high quality hitting from both sides, was between Cheuk Wai Hui of Hong Kong and the sixth-seeded Yu-Da Sheih of Chinese Taipei. The former prevailed in two hours, as he won the first and third sets for the loss of two games, but lost the second in the tie-break.

The results (first round): boys: Wang-Cheng Hsieh (Tpe) bt Jitin Bishnoi 6-2, 6-2; Amanjot Singh bt Chatwinder Singh 6-1, 6-4; Kenichiro Nakahara (Jpn) bt Kartik Raju 6-1, 6-0; Karan Rastogi bt M. V. Abhay Prakash 6-2, 6-2; Cheuk-Wai Hui (Hkg) bt Yu-Da Sheih (Tpe) 6-0, 6-7 (5-7), 6-2; Somdev Dev Varman bt Nihal Advani 6-4, 6-2; Divij Sharan bt Anshuman Dutta 6-3, 6-3; Rupesh Roy bt Siddharth Gulati 6-1, 7-5; Hiu-Tung Yu (Hkg) bt V.M. Ranjeet 6-3, 6-3; Tushar Liberhan bt Punna Vikas 6-3, 7-5; Navdeep Singh bt Sun-Yong Kim (Kor) 6-3, 6-3; Tai-Wei Liu (Tpe) bt Aditya Madkekar 6-2, 6-4.

Girls: Isha Lakhani bt Mulsap Porntip (Tha) 7-6 (7-5), 6-2; Sandhya Nagaraj bt Lata Assudani 5-7, 6-0, 6-1; Ankita Bhambri bt Varanya Vijuksanaboon (Tha) 6-1, 6-3; So-Jung Kim bt I-Hsuan Hwang (Tpe) 6-1, 6-4; Kartiki Bhat bt Sandri Gangotri 6-2, 6-1; Parul Goswami bt Swetha Devaraj 6-3, 6-1; Ji-Young Kim (Kor) bt Oormila Ram 6-1, 6-1; Yung-Jan Chan (Tpe) bt Pichitra Thongdach (Tha) 6-3, 6-1; Marutha Devi bt Maya Rosa (Ina) 7-6 (10-8), 6-4; Madura Ranganathan bt Krushmi Chheda 6-1, 6-4; Yi Chen (Tpe) bt Priyanka Parekh 6-1, 6-1; Sania Mirza bt Thassha Vittayaviroj (Tha) 7-5, 6-1.

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