By Jilawatan

India tennis ace Sania Mirza returns to the venue of her greatest ever triumph, Melbourne Park, for first round action in the Australian Open next week. Whilst the draws for the women’s and mixed doubles are yet to be chalked out, the 2009 mixed doubles defending champion has earned an exceptionally challenging first round encounter.

Mirza will meet the no.26 seed Frenchwoman Aravane Rezai in the opening round. The girls have met twice before, with Mirza coming out on top in their first meeting in Kolkata more than 3 years ago. Rezai turned the tables on Mirza last year on the red clay of Madrid winning rather comfortably 6-3, 6-3.

Rezai has a poor track record at Australia. She has crashed out in the first round on two of her three visits to the Open. Mirza meanwhile will be making her 6th singles appearance at Melbourne Park, and has never before slipped at the first hurdle making the 2nd round thrice and the 3rd round twice in 2005 & 2008.

The winner of the contest has a considerably easier second round in prospect as she would face the winner of a match featuring Belarusian Olga Govortsova and an as yet undetermined qualifier. Third seed Svetlana Kuznetsova is their potential third round opponent.