Sania storms into quarters

Bangalore, Feb 15 (UNI) Title favourite Sania Mirza bounced back in style, after a first set defeat, to beat back Tatania Poutcheck of Bulgaria 3-6, 7-5, 6-2 to storm into the quarterfinals of the Sony Ericsson International WTA Tennis tournament played at KSLTA stadium here today.

Sania went a set down broken twice due to bad serving, but rallied back brilliantly in the next two sets to emerge a worthy winner.

Sania, the Pattaya Open semifinalist, dominated over her rival thereafter banging in her forehand shots repeatedly that forced the Bulgarian to submission. 28-yeare-old Tatania, ranked 122, looked tired and was unable to take the barrage of shots and began commiting too many unforced errors.

Despite leading 5-4 after earning a break in the second set, she let Sania hold her serve in the tenth game. Sania cashing in on the mistake broke Tatania in the 12th game to level-up the set score and broke back to lead 6-5 and won easily holding on to her serve.

In the decider, the second seeded Sania raced to a 3-0 lead with two service breaks and never looked back thereafter. The Hyderabadi lass took a commanding 5-2 holding her serves and broke Tatiania for the third time to win the match after bridging a 15-40 deficit in the final game of the match. She first had a lucky forehand to force duece and won the advantage with a thundering forehand. Sania won the match as Tatiania hit a forehand wide.

Earlier top seed Mara Santangelo of Italy and Melinda Czink of Hungary entered the quarterfinals. Mara Santangelo beat Akgul Amanmuradova 3-6, 7-5, 6-2, while Melinda defeated Su-Wei Hsieh 4-6, 7-6 (2), 7-5 to make it to the last eight.

''It is hard to play at home when it is your bad day. In the first set I tried to get a few ball in the court but it did not happen. I was confident that I can better. But thankfully I could pickup my game much better in the latter sets. I can certainly better from here,'' Sania said after the match.

UNI