Wild cards for Sania in NASDAQ Open

Hyderabad:Indian tennis sensation Sania Mirza and Indian-born US
player Neha Uberoi have been given wild cards in the $3,115,000 tier-
1 NASDAQ-100 Open tennis championship to be held at Miami, Florida
from March 23 to April 3.

Jessica Kirkland (USA), Sesil Karatantcheva (Bul), Angela Haynes
(USA), Viktoriya Kutuzova (Ukr), Anna Tatishvili (Gwo), Jamea Jackson
(USA), are the other wild cards.

Top players including Serina Williams (USA), Maria Sharapova (Rus),
Amelie Mauresmo (Fra), Svetlana Kuznetsova (Rus), Anastasia Myskina
(Rus) and Elena Dementieva have confirmed their entry in this
tournament.

After winning a tier-3 WTA title Hyderabad Open in front of the home
crowd and reaching the quarterfinal of tier-2 WTA event Dubai Open,
this was definitely going to be a big challenge for the ''Hyderabad
Pearl,'' who recently bagged good commercial endorsements.

The 77th ranked Sania said, ''this is the big event after the
Australia Open in which I took part. All most all top players are in
the fray. I wouldn't say that I will win the title, but winning
couple of matches is my motto. I am making some space in between
other engagements for training, hoping to put up better performance
and ultimately I should reach my target of top 50 as soon as
possible."

Indian tennis fans are also hoping Sania to win couple of good
matches, especially in the back drop of she resisting Serina Williams
in the third round of Australia Open, beating 66th ranked Russian
Maria Kirilenko in the semifinals of Hydrabad Open and beating
another Russian and seventh ranked Svetlana Kuznetsova in the second
round of Dubai tennis championships.

She has started this year with breaking in to top 200 reaching 77th
rank playing just three tournaments. This was a tremendous
improvement for the tennis teen, who was well on her target of
reaching top 50.