Czink spoils Sania’s party

STEPHANIE SAMUEL

Sania Mirza leaves the court in a huff after her unexpected loss to Melinda Czink at the Netaji Indoor Stadium on Wednesday. Picture by Amit Datta Calcutta: Hurricane Sania turned out to be a storm in a tea cup. Sania Mirza was stunned 6-0, 4-6, 4-6 in by Hungarian Melinda Czink in the second round of the WTA Sunfeast Open on Wednesday, leaving the tournament shorn of its sheen, at least in singles. And Sania had only Sania to blame, as she let go off a psychological advantage of winning the first set to love and letting Czink in. Her first serves, already under the scanner, deserted her completely; numerous unforced errors and five double faults added to the humiliation of being bested by the world No. 122. Of course, it didn’t help that Czink, whose forehand was her strength, upped her game by attacking Sania’s backhand, the Indian’s weakness, relentlessly. But back to the first set, where the Indian could do no wrong. The third seed here and world No. 34, came out firing on all cylinders, never once putting a serve, volley, forehand or foot out, and swept the Hungarian off her feet and into the second set in the blink of an eye. Set II was a tough fight, with Sania getting broken in the very first game. But she broke back in the very next to stabilise things. But not for long. Come the seventh game and Sania, the double faults made their presence felt and the teenager ended up giving her serve away on one. 4-3 to Czink, who hold her serve to make it 5-3. Sania’s serve became even more erratic and she double faulted twice in the ninth game, the second taking the game to deuce. An ace inbetween didn’t make up for blunders, as Czinks forehand reigned supreme. A couple of deuces later, Sania had the advantage. Then an objection from Czink over a baseline call must have been a bit too strong for the chair umpire’s liking and she was giving a court violation, and docked a point. So Sania lived to see another game. In vain, as she squanders double break points. Czink save the first with a brilliant serve and volley, and Sania helped her to deuce by netting a forehand. Two more forehands into the net later, and Czink had taken the second set. Sania lost her way in the first half of the third set, going down 0-3 in a flash. She suddenly found herself facing the prospect of giving a set away to love herself. The errors crept in further, frustration made itself felt, the racket was thrown a couple of times and the first serve fell to an all-time low. People began shifting uncomfortably in their seats. What was going on? A sigh of relief went up when Sania managed to get one break back in the fourth game. And the crowd was back at its vociferous best when Sania stumbled her way back to another break to level things at 4-4. Surely now she would step it up and give us what we wanted to see --- a famous win against all odds! But that, sadly, was not to be, as the gutsy Czink, turning a deaf ear to the pro-Sania galleries, upped her game, and broke right back. The end was in sight, and, though Sania tried gallantly to get the set back on even keel, even gaining a break point to that effect, it was not to be. She ended the match as she did the second set — with two forehands into the net. Sania’s doubles partner and birthday girl Virginia Ruano Pascual had a mixed day, crashing out in the second round of singles 7-6 (7-5), 6-7 (6-8), 6-1 to Estonia’s Kaia Kanepi. Later, she and Sania swept into the doubles second round with a 6-1, 6-0 thrashing of Indian duo Punam Reddy and Ragini Vimal. Shikha Uberoi, however, kept India’s flag flying by pulling off a stunning 6-2, 6-3 win over No. 8 seed Rika Fujiwara to make it to the quarter finals. A pumped up Shikha, who is based in the US, made up for a faulty service and several unforced errors with some scintillating forehands and powerful winners. In the first set, she broke Fujiwara in the second game, was broken back in the next and broke back in the fourth. She held on that break to win the set. In the second, Shikha was broken in the fifth, but breaks in the sixth and eight gave her the match. She will now meet Austrian Sybille Bammer, who beat Australia’s Nicole Pratt 1-6, 3-6 earlier in the day, in the quarters. Top seed Anastasia Myskina had a clinical 6-1, 6-0 win over Romania’s Edina Gallovits to set up a second-round meeting with countrywoman Galina Voskoboeva, who got past Victoria Azarenka of Belarus 6-3, 7-5. In other first round play, Russian second seed Elena Likhovtseva and Croatia’s seventh seed Croatian Karolina Sprem won their respective matches. Playing on Court 2, Likhovtseva, the second seed, needed two breaks in the first set and one in the second against Ukraine’s Yuliana Fedak to breeze into the second round. The Russian, ranked No. 16 on the WTA Tour, won 6-1, 6-2, and will now meet Sunitha Rao of the US in the second round. Karolina Sprem got past Australian Evie Dominikovic 6-4, 7-5 and faces Villmarie Castellvi of Puerto Rico in the second round.