Sania Mirza

By Jilawatan

Andy Murray’s discontent deepened on Friday as the luckless Scot lost to American Alex Bogomolov 6-1, 7-5 to exit the $9 million ATP-WTA Miami Masters.

Meanwhile Sania Mirza lost to Russian Maria Kirilenko 7-5, 3-6, 0-6. Sania, who beat Kirilenko in both their previous meetings, looked like maintaining her unbeaten record against the Russian when she took the first set.

But the 27th-ranked Russian broke the 99th-ranked Indian midway through the second set, and thereafter, there was no looking back.

Sania had a couple of opportunities to break back but her serve let her down.

Unexpected defeat

Murray’s loss in 95 minutes to the qualifier ranked 118th was the second straight unexpected defeat for the fifth seed, who frankly admits that he is struggling with his game and doesn’t have an immediate answer.

“A lot of players would get frustrated if they were playing the way that I have the last two weeks,” said the loser of the last two Australian Open finals.

On the women’s side, second seed Kim Clijsters took to the court after a shoulder injury recorded a 6-1, 6-1 thrashing of Anastasia Yakimova.

The results:

Men: Second round: Jo-Wilfried Tsonga bt Teimuraz Gabashvili 6-3, 6-7(3), 6-3; Mikhail Youzhny bt Lu Yen-Hsun 6-1, 6-0.

Robin Soderling bt Ivan Dodig 3-6, 6-2, 6-4; Mardy Fish bt Julien Benneteau 6-4, 6-3; Michael Llodra bt Xavier Malisse 6-2, 6-3; Viktor Troicki bt Marsel Ilhan 6-3, 6-3; Kevin Anderson bt Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 6-3, 5-7, 6-4; Alex Bogomolov bt Andy Murray 6-1, 7-5; James Blake bt Thomaz Bellucci 2-6, 6-4, 7-6(6); David Ferrer bt Igor Kunitsyn 6-2, 6-1; Pablo Andujar bt Fernando Verdasco 3-6, 7-6(3), 6-4; Marcel Granollers bt Stanislas Wawrinka 6-0, 6-7(4), 6-3.

Richard Gasquet bt Paolo Lorenzi 6-2, 6-3; Sam Querrey bt Mikail Kukushkin 6-3, 6-2; Novak Djokovic bt Denis Istomin 6-0, 6-1; John Isner bt Igor Andreev 6-4, 5-7, 7-6(2); Juan Martin del Potro bt Philipp Kohlschreiber 6-7(3), 6-4, 7-5.

Women: Third round: Anabel Medina Garrigues (ESP) bt Elena Vesnina (RUS) 6-3, 6-4; Shuai Peng bt Svetlana Kuznetsova 6-3, 6-1.

Agnieszka Radwanska bt Barbora Zahlavova Strycova 6-1, 6-0; Petra Kvitova bt Varvara Lepchenko 6-1, 6-2; Jarmila Groth bt Yaroslava Shvedova 6-4, 3-1, (retd.); Ekaterina Makarova bt Alisa Kleybanova 7-5, 6-3; Kim Clijsters bt Anastasia Yakimova 6-1, 6-1; Domenika Cibulkova bt Timea Bacsinszky 6-1, 5-7, 7-5; Virginie Razzano bt Kaia Kanepi 6-3, 7-6(5).

Maria Kirilenko bt Sania Mirza 5-7, 6-3, 6-0; Maria Martinez Sanchez bt Anna Tatishvili 6-1, 6-4; Vera Zvonareva bt Dinara Safina 3-6, 6-3, 6-2; Francesca Schiavone bt Angelique Kerber 6-4, 6-4; Llourdes Dominguez Lino bt Tatiana Pironkova 5-7, 6-3, 6-4.

Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova bt Agnese Szavay 6-1, 6-2; Marion Bartoli bt Ayumi Morita 6-3, 2-6, 6-1; Victoria Azarenka bt Lucie Hradecka 7-5, 4-6, 6-0; Ana Ivanovic bt Kimiko Date-Krumm 6-2, 6-0.

By Jilawatan

India’s Sania Mirza booked a second-round clash with second-seeded Venus Williams Tuesday with a straight-sets victory in the one million-dollar Family Circle Cup.

Sania Mirza beat Sesil Karatantcheva of Kazakhstan 6-4, 6-4 to line up the marquee meeting with Williams, who will be launching her campaign on Wednesday afternoon after enjoying a first-round bye.

Top-seeded Russian Elena Dementieva, who rose to a career-high ranking of number three in the world last week, reached the third round with a dominant 6-0, 6-2 victory over American Julie Ditty.

“I don’t feel any pressure being the number one seed here,” Dementieva said. “Tonight was a good start to the tournament for me. I had never played Julie before so I really didn’t want her to get into the match. It’s easy to lose your concentration. I really stayed focused tonight.”

Third-seeded Vera Zvonareva and number four Nadia Petrova, both of Russia, also reached the third round, as did sixth-seeded Marion Bartoli of France and seventh-seeded Slovakian Dominika Cibulkova.

Zvonareva cruised past Paraguay’s Rossana de los Rios 6-3, 6-2.

“I felt pretty good for my first match of the year on clay,” said Zvonareva, a finalist here last year. “I didn’t expect myself to play my best, and it was a bit of a struggle at times because of the wind, but it was pretty good.”

Fourth-seeded Petrova beat Austrian Patricia Mayr 6-1, 2-6, 6-2, Bartoli defeated Anastasija Sevastova of Latvia 6-1, 6-3 and Cibulkova downed Austrian Tamira Paszek 6-4, 6-0.

By Jilawatan

Vera Zvonareva of Russia and India’s Sania Mirza won semifinal matches Saturday and will play for the title at the Pattaya Open on Sunday.

The top-seeded Zvonareva easily breezed past seventh-seeded Shahar Peer of Israel, 6-1, 6-4. Peer won this title in 2006. Mirza, meanwhile, pulled out a 6-4, 5-7, 6-1 triumph over eighth-seeded Magdalena Rybarikova of Slovakia.

Zvonareva, currently ranked fifth in the world, is coming off her best finish in a Grand Slam event, losing in the semifinals to countrymate Dinara Safina at the Australian Open. She will be trying for her eighth career WTA singles crown on Sunday.

Last year, Zvonareva was 2-6 in finals. She has a career mark of 7-11 in title matches.

Sunday will mark the first WTA singles final for Mirza since losing to Anna Chakvetadze in Stanford in 2007. Her lone singles crown came back in 2005 at her home event in Hyderabad.

Mirza, who had been ranked as high as No. 27 back in August of 2007, is currently ranked just 126th after battling through a wrist injury for much of last season. She was a second-round loser to Nadia Petrova at the Australian Open, but won the mixed doubles title in Melbourne with fellow Indian Mahesh Bhupathi.

Zvonareva and Mirza have met just once previously, with Mirza rallying from a set down to earn a 5-7, 6-2, 6-4 victory in the quarterfinals of the 2005 Japan Open.

The 2009 Pattaya titlist will claim $37,000.

By Jilawatan

RUSSIAN Vera Zvonareva claimed her eighth career WTA title with a straight-sets win over India’s Sania Mirza in the Pattaya Open final in Thailand.

The No.1 seed had some difficulties handling her opponent’s big forehands in the first set but was too strong in the second, taking the match 7-5 6-1 in one hour and 17 minutes.

Zvonareva, who reached the semi-finals at the Australian Open last month, started strongly and raced to a 5-2 lead in the first set but lost the next three games as Mirza fought back.

At 6-5, the Russian set up a second set point with a backhand winner and then forced a backhand error from the Indian to break Mirza’s serve and win the set.

Zvonareva took charge in the second set, breaking Mirza in the fourth and sixth games.