By IANS
Kolkata : On a day when the Sunfeast Open’s biggest crowd puller Sania Mirza pulled out Monday due to an injury, Neha Uberoi and Kyra Shroff also crashed out of the tournament.
While fourth seed Maria Kirilenko of Russia made fast work of Neha Uberoi 6-2, 6-2, eighth seed Yung-Jan Chan of Chinese Taipei gave Kyra some lessons in tennis by taking the two sets without dropping a game.
Putting to rest speculation about her participation in the event, Sania, in a written statement, said: “I was really looking forward to participating at Sunfeast Open 2007. I am very upset that this injury is keeping me away from the courts.
“My fans have always been very supportive and I was keen to perform well in Kolkata. I wish all the players especially the Indian compatriots a great and exciting tournament,” she added.
WTA Tour supervisor for the Sunfeast meet Fabrice Choquet said: “Sania is out with a wrist injury that has plagued her since the US Open. She will also miss the Hansol Korea Open next week.
“If she recovers in time, she will play the Tokyo Open that starts in two week’s time,” she added.
Lucky loser Indonesian Sandy Gumuliya will replace Sania Mirza and will now play Sunitha Rao in a first round tie. The selection of the lucky loser is made based on their performance in the qualifiers and current WTA rankings.
In the penultimate match of the day, Kirilenko sent down a barrage of forehand winners and passing shots to which Uberoi didn’t have any answer. The world No 35 quickly moved to 3-1 up with one break. She then went on to win the fourth, fifth and sixth games to take the set 6-2.
In the second set, the game became more one-sided, but not before Uberoi raised visions of a comeback. The fourth seed saw two quick games, including breaking the 267th ranked Indian American once, before Uberoi came back with a vengeance to level scores.
After this the mauling started and the next four games were snuffed up in 12 minutes, as Kirilenko rode the crest of the tide to seal the match.
The other match featuring 14-year-old Kyra Shroff and eighth seed Yung-Jan Chan ended in less than an hour. Kyra would like to forget this initiation into the WTA tour as she lost 0-6, 0-6.
Yung-Jan roared through the match with a quality baseline game that left Kyra in a daze. While Kyra found some of the stinging serves hard to handle, the passing shots and backhands were lessons that Kyra learnt.
In the other matches of the day, Australian Casey Dellacqua made quick work of Canadian Aleksandra Wozniak 6-2, 6-3 in just over and hour to move to the second round.
The day’s opening match saw a baseline slugfest between British qualifier Naomi Cavaday and Ekaterina Ivanova in which the Russian outpaced the World No. 193 6-3, 2-6, 6-2 in an hour and 38 minutes.
Cavaday, who is under the tutelage of Tim Henman’s former coach David Felgate, still needs to find a way to keep her forehands on target. All Ivanova, who’s yet to win a title on the tour, did was to keep the ball in play. Cavaday did the rest by committing a huge number of unforced errors.