Sania sets up date with Sharapova in Quarters

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San Diego, Aug 3: Oozed by abundance of confidence, Sania Mirza continued her demolition act in the WTA circuit as she stormed her way into the quarter-finals of the Accura Classic here, and set up 'mouth-watering' clash against world No 2 Maria Sharapova of Russia.

The 20-year-old Hyderabadi lass demolished eight seed Dinara Safina of Russia 6-1 6-2 in the pre-quarter-final yesterday, and sets up, in what could turn out to be her 2005 US Open revenge match against top seed Maria Sharapova, who had accounted for 13th seed Tatiana Golovin of France 6-0, 6-3, if she has to advance into the semi-finals of the 1,340,000 dollar Tier I event.

Sania showed no signs of tentativeness against a higher-ranked Safina which was prevalent in her earlier tie against Daniilidou.

The 14th ranked Russian was no match for the Indian ace as he lost just three games against maverick Marat Safin's sister to power her way into the last eight.

The 31st ranked Indian will now have to come out with all guns blazing in the next round against the Wimbeldon champion.

If Sania manages to get past Sharapova, then she might be up for another revenge with a possibility of running into third seed Anna Chakvetadze of Russia in the last four against whom she lost in the finals of the WTA Tour Tier II event in Stanford last week.

Meanwhile, all was not well for the Indian in San Diego yesterday, as she lost a golden opportunity to complete a hat-trick of doubles title, losing in the second round of the tournament here.

She had earlier won at Cincinnati, pairing with Bethanie Mattek of United States and later at Stanford partnering Israeli Shahar Peer.

The seventh seeded Indo-Isreali pair could not repaet their feat here, as they lost a marathon three-setter against an unseeded pair of Su-Wei Hsieh of Chinese Taipei and Alla Kudryavtseva of Russia 3-6, 6-3, 12-10.

UNI