Sania Mirza

Florida: Indian tennis ace Sania Mirza lifted her first WTA title of the year with partner Chia-jung Chuang of Chinese Taipei in the women’s doubles event at the $220,000 MPS Group Championships (as briefly reported in Monday’s Late City edition).

The unseeded duo stunned the top-seed Czech-American combine of Kveta Peschke and Lisa Raymond 6-3, 4-6, 10-7 in a gruelling one and a half-hour battle. This is the pair’s first title.

“This was our second tournament together, so we’ve had a lot more match practice. Kveta and Lisa have been playing for a long time and they’re really experienced, and we’re really happy to have beaten them,” an elated Sania said after the win that made her and Chuang richer by $11,000.

For Sania, it was also her eighth career doubles title and her first in more than a year. The Indian last won a doubles title in August 2007 with Italian Mara Santangelo at the New Haven hard-court event in the US.

“We just played the big points better at the end, I think that was the difference,” said Sania.

In an intriguing battle, Sania and Chuang tested their fancied rivals from the very start, earning as many as seven break points in the opening set.

The unseeded duo converted three of the seven breaks it got and saved four of the six breaks it faced to go one-up in the marathon match.

The second set was equally hard-fought but Peschke and Raymond converted a crucial break point to draw level.

However, in the nerve-wracking super tie-breaker, it was Sania and Chuang who kept their cool to seal the issue.

The win continues a successful return from injury for Sania. The Hyderabad girl, who had been laid low by a wrist injury for most of last year, earlier won the Australian Open mixed doubles title with Mahesh Bhupathi in January.

After the Florida triumph next up for Sania is the $1 million Family Circle Cup clay-court tennis tournament in Charleston where she will take on Kazakh Sesil Karatantcheva in the opening round.

The Indian has played Karatantcheva once back in 2004, a match she lost. Interestingly, that too was a clay-court tournament.

If Sania manages to avenge her 2004 disappointment, she would find herself up against second-seed and multiple Grand Slam winner Venus Williams in the second round.

Sania is currently ranked 100th on the WTA charts, while Karatantcheva is 133rd.