Sania beats Hingis in East West Bank Classic

Los Angeles, Aug 8: Sania Mirza's new-found knack of toppling seeds at the US courts continued, this time 'Swiss Miss' Martina Hingis bore the brunt of her fury as she upset the seventh seed to storm into the quarterfinals of the 600,000 dollar East West Bank Classic tournament here.

In a keenly-contested three-setter that lasted a little over one and a half hours, Sania defeated world number 12 Hingis 6-2, 2-6, 6-4 to enter the last eight of the Tier II hard court event.

With this win, the 20-year-old Hyderabadi has equalised her record against Hingis which now stands at 2-2, the last two encounters having gone in the favour of Sania.

She had earlier prevailed over Hingis when the two players last met at the Korea Open in October last year.

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Against the former Wimbeldon champion here, Sania started off with a blaze and broke her opponents serve twice to take the opener with ease.

The second set saw a resurgent Hingis fighting back with two service breaks, apart from saving two break points to equalise.

However, Sania managed to gather her act together in the decider and held her Achille's heel her serve, and broke the seventh seed Swiss once to pocket the thrilling encounter.

She will now play the winner of the match between Virginie Razzano (France) and Shahar Peer (Israel) in the quarterfinals.

Interestingly, Sania became the first Indian in 20 years to break into the top 30 world ranking players when she achieved her career-best WTA ranking of 30 earlier this week, courtesy her superb run of form at the US hardcourts in the past three weeks.

She stated her impressive run with the Cincinnati Open where she reached the quarterfinals. It was followed by a final berth at Stanford and a semifinal appearance at last week's Acura Classic.

Meanwhile, in doubles, Sania and her Cincinnati Open winning partner Bethanie Mattek of the US will take on Janette Husarova of Slovakia and Michaella Krajicek of the Netherlands in the first round.

UNI