Tanasugarn during her match on Monday. Telegraph pictures

Calcutta: Poor Melinda Czink. The Hungarian who last year made a lot of foes in this part of the world for dismissing Sania Mirza in the second round of the $175,000 WTA Sunfeast Open, didn’t know what hit her.

Before you could pronounce Martina, top seed Hingis stated the obvious difference in class with an effortless 6-1, 6-2 win over Czink to glide into the second round of the Tier III tournament at the Netaji Indoor Stadium on Monday.

Fourth seed Aravane Rezai, too, kept her promise with a straight set 6-2, 7-6 (7-3) win over Indian wild card entrant Ankita Bhambri.

The day’s only ripple was caused by unseeded Thai Tamarine Tanasugarn, who knocked out the sixth seed, Kaia Kanepi of Estonia, in a three-hour two-minute marathon.

However, the utmost ease with which the Swiss Miss won, should send a shiver down the spine of others. She looked fit, athletic and absolutely at the top of her game.

With breaks in the first, fifth and seventh games, the world No.9 wrapped up the first set in just 20 minutes. She probably had an early dinner appointment.

In contrast, world No.84 Czink looked nervous. Going a break down in the very first game, she never really recovered. At times, her frustration showed as she tried outrageous sliced drop shots from the baseline which fell on wrong side of the net. Down 0-40 in the crucial fifth game, one such mistimed effort saw her gift the game to Hingis.

The Slovak-born former world No.1 kept growing in confidence, and besides converting a massive five of her eight break opportunities, her service was accurate and almost unreturnable.

The mercurial Swiss will next take on Tzipora Obziler of Israel, who brushed aside Yulia Beygelzimer 6-2, 6-3 in one hour and seven minutes.

Coming back to the second set, in which Czink’s only achievement was to win one more game than the first, Hingis broke in the fourth and eighth games as the match finished in 47 minutes.

In a belated effort, the Hungarian did try to mix it up by attacking the relatively weaker Hingis backhand, but several times she was left searching for answers as winner after winner whizzed past and she was reduced to smashing the racket in sheer frustration.

The form which Hingis showed should set up a dream semi-final with Sania Mirza, provided the Indian challenger wins her next three matches.

Abigail Spears of the US, who came into the tournament as a feed-up, set up a second round clash with Tanasugarn with a straight set win over Akgul Amanmuradova of Uzbekistan 6-3, 6-4.

The match between Tatiana Poutchek and Anne Keothavong also stretched into three sets, with the Belarussian Poutchek winning 6-2, 6-7 (5-7), 6-3. She meets Rezai in the next round.

The world No.124 Tanasugarn, who had to use all her resources to squeeze out a 6-7 (10-12), 7-5, 6-0 win on the Centre Court over the much taller world No.72, saved as many as six match points in the second set.

At the other end of the spectrum, failure to finish off the advantage ultimately proved to be the Estonian’s bane.

The world No.72, who was relying mainly on her big serves to move out of trouble, broke back down 5-6 to set up a scintillating tie-break which seemed to carry on for ages.

Her big serve came handy again (sending down five aces to Tanasugarn’s 0 in first set) as she clinched the tie-break 12-10. The first set lasted an hour and 14 minutes.

Breaking Tanasugarn in the ninth game of the second set to go up 5-4, the Estonian, who turned pro in 2000, looked set to finish off the match. It was here that the wheel of fortune turned.

An astonishing comeback from Tanasugarn, who has a lone singles and five doubles WTA titles to her credit, saw her save six match points in the crucial tenth game which ran into deuce nine times. The veteran Thai, who turned pro in 1994, soon spotted that Kanepi was having trouble in moving swiftly on court.

She used this to the hilt, sending the 5 ft 11 inch tall Estonian to all corners. It was soon 7-5 for the Thai.

Thereafter, it was all downhill for Kanepi, who failed to get into the scoresheet in the third and final set.

It turned out to be a bad day for the Indians, with Ankita going down to the fourth seed after a valiant effort in singles, and Isha Lakhani and Sandhya Nagaraj accepting defeat against the Ukrainian pair of Yulia Beygelzimer and Yuliana Fedak 3-6, 5-7, in doubles.

It’s left to Sania Mirza then, who takes on qualifier Rushmi Chakravarthy in an evening match on Tuesday, to provide some Indian adrenaline boost.

Over to Sania.

TUESDAY’S MATCHES

Centre Court: Alberta Brianti vs Yuliana Fedak (noon); Followed by Hana Sromova vs Shikha Uberoi; Followed by Sanaa Bhambri vs Angelique Widjaja; Followed by Casey Dellacqua vs Karolina Sprem; Followed by Rushmi Chakravarthy vs Sania Mirza (not before 7.00 pm); Followed by Nicole Pratt vs Sunitha Rao.

Court I: Anastassia Rodionova vs Alla Kudryavtseva (noon); Followed by Iroda Tulyaganova vs Chia-Jung Chuang; Followed by Arantxa Parra Santonja vs Olga Poutchkova; Followed by Alla Kudryavtseva/Tatiana Poutchek vs Alberta Brianti /Anne Keothavong; Followed by Sandra Kloesel/Galina Voskoboeva vs Melinda Czink/Shikha Uberoi; Followed by Ankita Bhambri/Sanaa Bhambri vs Akgul Amanmuradova/Iroda Tulyaganova.