Sania-Zheng in second round of Rogers Cup

Sania Mirza

Toronto, Aug 7 (IANS): India’s Sania Mirza and her Chinese partner Zheng Jie advanced to the second round in a gripping tie-breaker at the Rogers Cup tennis tournament here.

Zheng and Mirza defeated Natalie Grandin of South Africa and Croatia’s Darija Jurak 4-6, 7-6 (7-5), 10-2, Tuesday, reports Xinhua.

After a tense one hour and 38 minutes, Zheng and Mirza edged out Grandin-Jurak 2-1 in the tiebreaker to win the match, and end the see-saw encounter.

“I think we have good start, we have three-love, then we try to keep play like for first three games, but you know we had too many mistakes because we tried to make more winners, but it’s very dangerous… it gave opponents chance for comeback,” said Zheng.

The pair started off the first set strong and quickly took the lead. But Grandin, with swift and strong ground-strokes, overtook Zheng and Mirza to make a comeback — first tying the game at 4-4, and then ultimately winning the set playing aggressively.

Zheng and Mirza have had relatively little experience working together. They partnered up for the first time this May at the Brussels Open where they went up to the semifinals. “She’s a very good doubles partner and she’s an unbelievable forehand, so fast and in the baseline she’s so strong, so make me chance for crash on the net, so I think we can play pretty good,” Zheng said.

She said they walked into the match not knowing what to expect of their opponents, who also partnered up for their first time.

“Our opponents play pretty good, one girl is left hand, she’s making some spin, and another one is play so fast,” she said. “So for me, I feel timing is different, so sometimes have too many mistakes.”

But Zheng’s quick reflexes shone through as she broke up two consecutive long rallies between Mirza and Grandin with swift short strokes, taking their opponents by surprise early on in the second set.

Mirza and Zheng, who was ousted by Germany’s Mona Barthel in a singles match Monday morning 7-6 (7-3), 3-6, 6-7, will be facing the winner of the match between Canada’s Eugenie Bouchard and Belgium’s Kirsten Flipkens, and Georgia’s Oksana Kalashnikova and Poland’s Alicja Rosolska.