CHARLESTON – Indian qualifier Sania Mirza bowed out of the singles event of the WTA Family Circle Cup but advanced to the doubles semifinals along with Elena Vesnina. Sania’s brilliant singles run ended with a 6-2, 2-6, 2-6 quarter-final defeat against Chinese 11th seed Peng Shuai at the USD 721,000 hard court tournament.
In the one-hour 33 minutes contest, first service played a huge role in the outcome of the match as the Chinese raised the level of the game by a few notches after losing the first set. Sania could not convert any of the two break chances and dropped her own serve twice to let Peng stretch the match to the decisive third set.
In the final set, Sania converted both her chances but could not manage a single hold, which hurt her in the end. In the doubles quarter-finals, the unseeded pair of Sania and Elena came from behind to beat Alla Kudryavtseva of Russia and Anastasia Rodionova of Australia 3-6, 6-2, 10-8. In the semifinals, they will take on Ji Zheng and Shuai. Sania Mirza entered her first quarterfinals at a WTA Tour tournament after three and a half years when she beat German wildcard Sabine Lisicki 6-4, 6-4.
It is Sania’s first WTA Tour quarterfinal since San Diego in August 2007. The Indian, who came through the qualifiers, now plays 11th-seeded Chinese Shua Peng, who defeated seventh seed Russian Nadia Petrova 6-3, 5-7, 6-2.
