Sania Scripts History

Sania Mirza oscillated between occasional brillianceand erratic shot selection but raised her game when it mattered most to createhistory and become the first Indian woman to win a WTA Tour title in the $140,000Hyderabad Open.

The unseeded 18-year-old, backed by a vociferous crowd,held her nerve in a scintillating final to beat ninth seed Alyona Bondarenko ofUkraine 6-4, 5-7, 6-3 at the Sports Authority of Andhra Pradesh complex.

It turned out to be a battle of nerves for both Saniaand Alyona, both of whom were playing in their maiden Tour final, as they lookedmore than anxious to finish off the points and committed too many unforcederrors in the bargain.

Sania, two years younger to her 102-ranked opponent,handled the pressure better in the two-hour encounter to send her thousands ofsupporters into wild celebration.

It was the final set which proved that the Hyderabadilass has nerves of steel as she broke her opponent in the first, third and fifthgames to race to a 5-1 lead and then managed to ward off tremendous pressureafter dropping a match point and a service game to clinch the title.

It was not the best of starts for Sania, as she committed three double faults inher first service game to concede a 2-0 lead to Alyona in the first set.

But the Indian then came back strongly in the next gameafter being 0-40 down to break her opponent and then raced to a 4-2 lead bywinning the next three games.

But, with the set almost there for her to win, Saniaseemed to get over anxious to finish it off quickly and committed a number ofunforced errors to put herself under pressure.

In fact, the local favourite wasted as many as nine setpoints and had to save three break points on her serve in the 10th game beforewrapping up the set.

The second set began on a promising note for Sania asshe got the break of serve in the very first game.

But it was struggle with herself thereafter as Sanialost her rhythm completely and had problems even in sending in her first serves,the barrage of unforced errors not helping her cause.

Sania lost serve in the second and sixth games to trail2-5 and it was a spate of unforced errors by Alyona which helped her to holdserve in the eighth.

The rising star, who had earlier created history bybecoming the first Indian woman to reach the third round of a Grand Slam at theAustralian Open last month, made full use of the opportunity by saving three setpoints in the next game to break the Ukrainian and then held her own to levelthe score at 5-5.

The problems with shot selection once again surfaced asSania wasted three game points to lose the set 5-7 and take the match to thedecider.

The decider, however, turned out to be a one-sided affair as Sania raced to a5-1 lead and then ensured there were no last minute blues.

Earlier, third seed Zi Yan and Jie Zheng of Chinastunned Olympic gold medallists and compatriots Ting Li and Tian Tian Sun tolift the doubles title.

Yan and Zheng, who became the first Chinese women toreach a Grand Slam singles fourth round at Roland Garros last year, were intotal control and never really threatened by their fancied opponents, cruisingto a 6-4, 6-1 victory.

Seeded third, Yan and Zheng seemed a confident lot fromthe word go and took a 2-0 lead in the opener and 3-0 in the second set toassert their supremacy.

After a fairly well-contested first set, Yan and Zhengtightened their grip and overwhelmed the title winners at the Athens Olympics,who were second seeded here but appeared to be struggling to get their acttogether.

PTI