Sania's downhill journey sore point for Sunfeast Open

Sania Mirza's lacklustre display and plumetting rankings may act as a dampener for the USD 175, 000 WTA Sunfeast Open that begins here on September 18.

The second edition of the fancied meet, with world No 9 Martina Hingis of Switzerland as the top seed, has nine players who are ranked among the top 100 in the WTA list.

However, apart from Hingis, the home-spun Sania was expected to be the main draw for the tennis fans of the metropolis who had turned out in numbers to watch the glamorous Hyderabad girl in action in the maiden edition of the tourney last year.

Sania, who created waves in the international circuit last year with a series of scintillating performances to shot up into the 30s in the run up to the tournament, caused quite a few hartbreaks when she went down to Hungarian Melinda Czink in the second round.

With Sania's exit, the fizz went out of the tournament, and even the final -- that featured top star Anastasia Myskina against Karolina Sprem -- was played before largely empty stands at the Netaji Indoor Stadium.

And this came after a high-pitch build-up centering around Sania to the event.

In contrast to last year, Sania has seen her fortunes slide in the last two weeks as her rankings dropped sharply from 44 to 70 after back-to-back early defeats in WTA events as also the US Open.

The build-up to the tournament has also been low key this time compared to last year.