Thai Open could spell gains for Sania

For Sania Mirza this week’s Thailand Open could be a defining moment of her career. Seeded fifth in the event, a good performance here by Sania — she won her first-round match today — could see her get her first Grand Slam seeding, at the 2006 Australian Open.

To have a decent chance of being seeded at Melbourne, Sania will need to ensure that she manages to stay within the Top 35 for starts. Which simply means that she needs to ensure that she does not lose early; making the semis would be a big help. Anything short of that would leave her finishing the year a couple of spots outside the target (she herself believes she’d end at 40). However, earning a Slam seeding is not totally based on a player’s year-end finish. It depends on their status at the time of seeding, which in the case of the Australian Open is a week before the tournament proper. There are two weeks of tournaments before the Australian Open begins, and that’s where Sania also needs to shine.

Coming back to Thailand, Sania has every reason to believe she can make the semis. Seeded No 5 for the event — for only the fourth time in her WTA career — Sania despatched Slovakia’s Henrieta Nagyova, currently ranked 197 6-1, 4-6, 6-0.

Next up for her is China’s Meng Yuan, ranked in the high 100s, and then a possible quarterfinal match-up with No 3 seed Gisele Dulko of Argentina, to whom she lost at the French Open. That, though, was on clay and Thailand is Sania’s favourite surface — hard court.

There’s one more bonus that could come her way, if everything goes to script: She could end the year as Asia’s number one woman player, a position currently held by Japan’s Ai Sugiyama.

Not bad for someone in her first season in the big league.