Sania storms into fourth round, to meet Sharapova

New York: Sania Mirza continues to make waves at the Flushing Meadow with a straight set win against Marion Bartoli to set up a fourth round battle with top seed Maria Sharapova in the fourth round of the women's singles event of the US Open.

An erratic Sania overcame the initial hiccups and benefited from her opponent's leg injury to chalk out a 7-6(7/4), 6-4 win in the third round of the event here on Friday.

This is the first time that the Indian sensation has reached the fourth round of any Grand Slam event.

Sania began with a bang and raced to a 4-2 lead before she squandered the advantage as her French rival staged a comeback to stretch it to tie-breaker. This jolted Sania out of her complacence and her trademark powerful ground strokes saw her bag the set in 55 minutes.

With Bartoli hamstrung by the injury, Sania was in no mood to relax and she broke her opponent in the fifth game to pocket the second set in 40 minutes and move to the fourth round.

She is now almost certain to meet top seed Sharapova unless the Russian loses her third round match to German Julia Schruff.

Sania hit the ball well and hit five aces even though she had seven doubles faults, compared to four by Bartoli. She, however, could not rein in her unforced errors and had 49 of those in the match. But a staggering 45 winners by the Indian made all the difference while her French rival hit only three.