Sania sets up date with Chakvetadze in last 32

New York, Aug 31: Sania Mirza stormed her way into the third round of the US Open with an easy victory over Laura Granvile of the US.

The 26th seeded Indian took one hour and 22 minutes to prevail over the 60th ranked Granville 6-3, 7-5. With this win, Sania reached the last 32 of a grand slam tournament for the first time in two years.

Sania, while serving a 5-4 in the second set, squandered two match points when Granville broke her for the fifth time to level the set.

It acted as a wake up call for the 20-year-old Hyderabadi as she came back strongly breaking her opponent's serve right back and then holding her own serve to seal the encounter in her favour.

''Once you miss a match point you start thinking every time you have one. I guess that's where the mental strength counts,'' said Mirza ''When I lost the game, there wasn't much I could do. I had to put it behind me. The last two games I played very good. I started to be more aggressive.'' Sania, who is on the verge of breaking into top 20 ranking, continued her streak of unforced errors as she committed 33 unforced errors yesterday, compared to 20 for Granville.

But her powerful groundstrokes of the forehand eventually did the trick for Sania, and helped her to edge past the American in winners. She hit 33 winners yesterday compared to her opponet's 18.

''I'm always going to have more unforced errors than the other person,'' Sania said.

''If I'm going to play such attacking tennis, there are going to be very few days when I'll have very few errors. You have to be Roger Federer to do that.'' In the third round, the 27th-ranked Mirza will have a golden chance to take Stanford final revenge against sixth seed Anna Chakvetadze of Russia, who defeated her all the three times they have faced each other in singles.

Meanwhile, in the doubles, Sania and her American partner Bethanie Mattek cruised into the second round with an easy 6-2, 6-1 victory over unseeded French-Serbian duo of Severine Bremond and Jelena Jankovic.

The 16th seed Indo-American pair will next face Jarmila Gajdosova of Slovakia and Bryanne Stewart of Australia in the next round.

UNI