Sania Mirza may skip next week's Rogers Cup

A stomach muscle pull may force Sania Mirza, fresh from her ascent into the top 50 rankings, to skip next week's $1.3 million Rogers Cup in Toronto, her father revealed.

"Sania is struggling with a muscle pull in the stomach and playing more will only make it worse. We may pull her out of next week's Rogers Cup to give her time to recover for the US Open," Imran Mirza said from Hyderabad.

"Lets see how things turn out and we will decide according to how she feels this week," he added.

Commenting on Sania's climb up the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) rankings ladder to 48, Mirza said he was happy with the achievement.

"It is a great achievement for her and the realisation of a personal dream. She started out setting this goal (breaking into the top 50) for herself and she's shown that she's got what it takes," he added.

"Sania has not had the benefit of having the best coaches or the best hitting partners despite which she has come this far as she has leant quickly on the tour," he maintained.

Sania had a great run in last week's $1.3 million Acura Classic in San Diego in the US but lost in the third round to Akiko Morigami of Japan.

She had taken out ninth ranked Nadia Petrova of Russia in the second round of the tournament to collect the required points to make the top 50.

"A rank is just on paper and it seldom matters on court. The tough part is hanging on to that ranking and improving on it as it gets tougher the further you go," Mirza said.

"There is no relaxing at this level."

The Hyderabadi girl had started the North American hard court circuit last month ranked 70 before moving up to 64 after a good outing at the Cincinnati Open.

She improved on this with another good show at the Bank of West Classic at Stanford that pushed her up to 59 last week before the latest rise into the top 50.

Sania is scheduled to play the year's final grand slam, the US Open, which begins August 29.