Sania goes down fighting to Bychkova at Tashkent Open

By Sunder Iyer

Tashkent, September 21: Indian tennis star Sania Mirza fresh from her doubles win at Guangzhou went down fighting to Russian Ekaterina Bychkova in the first round at the Tashkent Open, a Sony Ericsson Tour event being played at the Olympic Tennis Centre in Tashkent, Uzbekistan here on Tuesday.

Bychkova ranked 175 in the world scarped past 125 ranked Sania 6-1, 4-6, 7-5 in a 2 hours 7 minutes battle to make it to the second round where she will take on the top seed Alexandra Dulgheru.

Watched by her husband Shoib Malik, Sania came through a long flight late night yesterday looked rusty in the first set going down tamely 6-1 in less than 30 minutes. Sania lost her serves in the 3rd, 5th and 7th games.

In the second set Sania seemed to have found her rhythm to take the set after being down 2-4 and securing breaks in the 7th and 9th games. Bychkova served poorly serving 5 double faults.

The Indian star looked like closing the match racing off to a 5-2 lead in the decider. Bychkova, who had earlier defeated Sania at Bali in 2005, however, clawed back breaking her in the 8th, 10th and the 12th games. Mirza had two match points in the 11th game, but Bychkova hit an ace and winner to get back into the match and hold on. In the 12th game Sania had an opportunity to level scores 6-6 and force a tiebreak. However, she served two double faults which sealed her fate.

Photo caption: Sania Mirza getting tips from her coach (top) while Sania in action during her first round match at Tashkent Open on September 21, 2010.

Source: Sania's Media Team