New Delhi: India completed a 3-0 win over Chinese Taipei when Sania Mirza and Manisha Malhotra beat I-Hsuan Hwang and Tin-Wen Wang 7-5, 6-1 in the Fed Cup qualifiers at the R. K. Khanna Stadium on Monday.

Earlier, Ankita Bhambri recovered from a sluggish start to beat I-Ting Wang 6-3, 6-1, before a pumped up Sania scored a thrilling 6-4, 7-6 (7-3), victory over Chia-Jung Chuang as India took a 2-0 lead in the opening rubber of the Asia-Oceania Zone Group 1 tie.

Ankita handled the big match pressure with maturity while Sania overcame her erratic form to give India a winning start.

Ankita went up 4-1 but her lack of match practice showed as she allowed the 536th ranked Wang to close the gap to 4-3 in the first set. In the eighth game, she was down 0-30 before pulling up her socks in time to hold serve. Ankita uncorked a double break of serve in the second set to go up 5-1 and finished the match with a strong forehand winner.

Sania, on the other hand, was for the most part fighting her own self. Also, she had problems with serve throughout the match. Although she hit a few aces, there were some double faults, too, that came at crucial junctures.

A poor service game saw her go down 0-3 in the first set but she regained ground to take the set. The second set went into tie-break where Sania edged her opponent in a dramatic finish. After breaking Chuang in the very first game, Sania fired two successive aces before committing a double fault and two other unforced errors to drop serve.

It was followed by a phase when there was literally no firepower in her serves. The match seemed to drift with Chuang leading 5-2 but a cooling of tempers helped Sania find her form again. (PTI)