By IANS
Tokyo : Second seeded Sania Mirza, coming back after a long lay-off due to injury, made a winning start in both singles and doubles at the $175,000 Japan Open tennis tournament here Tuesday.
After scoring a straight sets win in the singles Monday, she partnered American Christina Fusano a day later to enter the women’s doubles quarter-finals.
Mirza and Fusano registered a 6-3, 6-2 win over the Polish-Romanian pair of Ursula Radwansaka and Agnes Szatmari.
The Indian ace, ranked 28th in the world, had won her singles 6-0, 6-4 against local player Ayumi Morita in the first round. In the second round, second seeded Sania faces Australian Casey Dellacqua, who notched up an impressive 6-4, 6-0 win over France’s Severene Bremond Monday.
Mirza has been in fine form over the past few months, compiling 15 wins over the North American hardcourt season and subsequently breaking into the top 30 for the first time in her career.
In the Indian star’s previous visit to the Ariake Colosseum back in 2005, she made it all the way to the semi-finals before falling to Tatiana Golovin.
In doubles, the Indo-American pair will now take on the winner of the first-round match between the Spanish duo of Arantxi Parra Santonja and Lourdes Dominguez Lino and the Colombian-American combine of Catalina Castano and Abigail Spears.
Mirza made a perfect start when she raced through the opening set against Morita without dropping a game. Morita came into her home event fresh from a quarter-final run in Seoul and the 17-year-old began to find her range at the start of the second set.
However, Mirza weathered the storm and moved into the round of 16 with a straight sets triumph.