Sania Mirza, Pattaya open’s No.5 seed defeated Colombia’s Catalina Castaño, her first round opponent in straight sets 7-6 6-0.Sania started the first set tentatively and had an up and down set but survived a tough fight against Colombia’s Catalina Castaño.
Sania dropped her first serve with a double-fault and trialed 0-2, started playing better and raced to a 5-3 lead. Sania was struggling to find any consistency, sometimes hitting some impressive winners with her big forehand, but also going for broke too often and making unnecessary errors. Sania had a set point when she was serving at 5-4, but unable to close out the set. Sania Mirza Pattaya Open first round
Sania played impressively in the tiebreak and won the tiebreak quite easily with a score of 7-1.
The Indian tennis icon carried the momentum to the second set and unleashed a more powerful and consistent game and won all the games in the set by overwhelming her opponent.
Here is what Sania had to say after the match.
“I started a little slow, but you’re getting into a new tournament, new balls, new atmosphere, and I’d never played her, so I was trying get a feel of how she plays,” Sania explained. “I should have finished the first set at 5-4, but from the tiebreak onwards I played like I wanted to play. I stopped giving any easy points.
Two of the Top 4 seeds were also in action Monday; with No.3 seed Mara Santangelo of Italy outlasting up-and-coming Slovakian Jarmila Gajdosova, 64 57 62.
No.4 seed Peng Shuai of China defeated Chinese Taipei’s Hsieh Su-Wei, advancing to the second round with a 61 62 victory.
Other notable first round winners include Australian Alicia Molik cruised to victory against Ukrainian Kateryna Bondarenko, 62 62.
