Sania storms into Japan Open semis
Friday, 07 October , 2005, 11:50

New Delhi: Sania Mirza stormed into the semi-final of the $1,70,000 AIG Japan Open Tennis Championship on Friday after upsetting the top seed Vera Zvonareva of Russia in a three-setter.

Sania, seeded eight, fought her way back after losing the first set 5-7 against the 22-ranked Russian to wrap up the next two 6-2, 6-4.

She will now meet the winner of the quarter-final contest between third seed Tatiana Golovin of France and Japan's Ai Sugiyama, seeded fifth.

Sania Mirza had defeated Aiko Nakamura 6-1 6-4 in the second round while Zvonareva beat Shahar Peer of France 6-3 7-5 to make it to the last eight.

In the doubles Sania, paired with Israel's Sahar Peer will meet second seed Gisela Dulko and Maria Kirilenko in the semi-finals.

Sania and Peer had defeated the third seed pair of Tathiana Garbin and Nicole Pratt 6-2, 6-1 to make it to the last four.

source

Good win... she beat the top seed!
A picture from today's win...

And another...

This Japan Open, is this big on the tennis calendar or this just a Micky Mouse thing?

Apart from the top 4 tournaments performance at the rest of the satellite round ups does matter in the ultimate ATP rankings

mostly tier 2 or tier 3 imran - those mickey mouse tournaments - tier 3 at least
it'll take time til she can hang with the big girls
she's a little too erratic, tries to hit her way out of trouble and that's bad
although she did beat us open champ svetlana kuznetsova and this russian girl
kuznetva sucked though this year