Sania bow out in singles, in sight of title in doubles

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Cincinnati, July 22 : Sania Mirza lost her first semi-final singles this season as she went down fighting to top seed Anna Chakvetadze of Russia 2-6, 7-5, 3-6 in the 175,000 dollar Cincinnati Open tennis tournament here.

But in doubles, the 20-year-old Hyderabadi is in line with her second title of the year as she and her partner Bethanie Mattek of United States recovered from one set down to beat Liga Dekmeijere of Latvia and Ipek Senoglu of Turkey 2-6, 6-3, 10-3.

The top seeded Indo-US pair will take on Alian Jidkova of Russia and Tatiana Poutchek of Belarus in the final.

Pairing with Vania King of United States, Sania had won the doubles title in Morocco in May.

In the singles, Sania, who was making her first semi-final appearance here after quarter-final exits in the last two years, pushed the world number eight Russian to the limit.

But, the third seeded Indian's Achille's Heal service let her down in the first and decideng sets not to speak of the Russian's more number of aces.

In the first set, Sania had 50 per cent first serve success as against Anna's 58. Sania's second serve was even worse as she could muster just eight per cent success while her opponent won 30 per cent.

An improved service in the second set saw Sania taking the tie to the decider but she succumbed to the Russian's powerful serve.

Anna raced out to a 4-0 lead in the decisive set and Sania could never catch her up to lose the tie in nearly two hours.

UNI





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