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Her poor singles form notwithstanding, Indian tennis ace Sania Mirza rose seven places to 93rd spot in the WTA rankings issued today.

Sania, who crashed out in the second round of the Family Circle Cup last week, has 692 ranking points.

In doubles, however, Sania has dropped a rung to 60th with 1696 points.
In the ATP rankings, Leander Paes gained a spot to fifth with 6980 points, while Mahesh Bhupathi remained static at ninth with 5795 points.

Sania Mirza took a set off Venus Williams, and pushed her for most of the early part of the third set, but just didn’t have enough in her locker to topple the seven-time Grand Slam champion at the Family Circle Cup, Charleston, South Carolina.
Williams ran away with the first set 6-1 and was up a break in the second, leading 3-1 before a spirited Mirza fought back rattling off five games in a row to level the match at a set a piece.

The players traded a couple of breaks of serve each in the opening exchanges of the final set before Venus showed her experience and pulled away to seal the match in just under two and a half hours: 6-1, 3-6, 6-2.

Though the match score might seem fairly innocuous, Mirza made a real match of the marathon encounter, which lasted a massive 215 points – an average of 9 a game!

Mirza started the match rather poorly, serving at an abysmal 42% in the opening set, and dropped it with a couple of breaks of serve. She did have her chances though, failing to take any of the four break points she created on the Williams serve.

In the second set Williams broke the Mirza serve for 2-1, and then consolidate the break by holding her own serve for 3-1. Just as it seemed that the match was all but over , Mirza went for broke, and her efforts were well rewarded in an extremely long drawn out second set.

Mirza saved 10 of 11 break points, and took the only two chances that she created to sneak away with the set on her third set point.

The third set started in ding-dong fashion as Mirza broke the Venus serve straight off the bat to go ahead 1-0. Venus broke right back to register her first game in seven. Sania broke the Williams serve for a fourth straight time to once again take the lead in the decider.

However the Mirza serve just failed to find any rhythm in the final set, as Sania was broken again to level the set at 2-2.

Venus finally held her serve to go ahead 3-2. She broke Sania again in the following game to pull ahead 4-2. The five-time Wimbledon champion saved seven break points in the final set as Mirza refused to give up, but with her own serve completely gone to bits, Mirza finally capitulated 6-2 in the decider, winning only 6 of 22 points on her own serve in the final set.

This is the first time that Sania has taken a set of Venus in their three meetings so far, the last being in the round of 32 at the Australian Open in 2008. And though there is still a lot of work to do in terms of regaining the form that saw her climb to no. 27 in the world, the Indian tennis star can take heart from a really competitive performance that tested both her fitness and desire to the maximum.

Sania Mirza has earned a high profile date with five-time Wimbledon champion Venus Williams in the 2nd round of the Family Circle Cup in Charleston, South Carolina.
The two have met on a couple of occasions in the past with Venus (no surprise) leading the head to head to battle 2-0. Their previous meeting was in the 3rd round at the Australian Open in 2008, with Mirza pushing Williams all the way, losing out in a couple of hard fought sets 6-7, 4-6.

Mirza overcame Bulgarian teenager Sesil Karatantcheva 6-4, 6-4 in 76 minutes after a rather scratchy performance, to be expected from a player who has been struggling for form in singles competition this year.

The Indian ace, who came into this match with a 7-6 record in 2009 till date, has failed to light up the tour despite getting off to a good start with a final appearance in the Pattaya Open in February.

In a bit of a see-saw first set, Sania served rather poorly, only getting 52% of her first serves in. Karatantcheva made Sania pay for missing all those first serves, winning 9 of 16 points of Sania’s second serve, and setting up 6 break opportunities for herself. And though Sania did drop her serve on two occasions, she did break the Bulgarian’s serve thrice to close out a tight opening set.

Though her first serve did continue to struggle right through the second set, Sania only conceded the one break point in it. Karatantcheva did however take advantage of it, but was broken twice by Mirza to seal the win.

Interestingly the two girls had played once before, with 14-year old Karatantcheva beating 17-year old Mirza in three close sets in 2004. Today, Mirza did square-up that old record!

Sania Mirza took up from where she left off at last week’s MPS Group Championships in Florida with a first round triumph over Sesil Karatantcheva of Kazakhstan at the Family Circle Cup Tuesday.

The Indian ace had it easy, winning 6-4, 6-4 against the world No. 133 in a contest that lasted close to an hour and 20 minutes.

Last time both met , Sania mirza was defeated.

High on confidence after returning victorious with the doubles title from the MPS Group Championships in Florida, Indian ace Sania Mirza will start her campaign against Sesil Karatantcheva of Kazakhistan at the Family Circle Cup tennis tournament here.

The 100th ranked Sania has faced Karatantcheva just once in 2004, where she was overpowered by the Kazakh.

Ironically, that was also a clay-court tournament.

Reports claimed that if the Indian manages to overcome the World number 133 to avenge her 2004 disappointment, she may have to take on second seed and multiple grand slam title winner Venus Williams of the US in the second round of the one million dollar tournament.

The clay-court event, which started on April 11, will continue till April 19.

Sania Mirza’s first doubles title of the year has helped her jump nine places to 59th in the WTA rankings even as she remained static at 100th in the singles chart issued on Monday.
The Indian ace, along with Chinese Taipei’s Chia-Jung Chuang, lifted the $220,000 MPS Group Championships’ doubles title in Florida on Sunday. It was Sania’s eighth doubles title overall but first in more than a year.

In singles, Sania didn’t lose ground despite her first-round exit from the Florida event and held on to the 100th spot with 652 points.

 Indian tennis ace Sania Mirza lifted her first WTA title of the year, teaming up with Chinese Taipei’s Chia-Jung Chuang to clinch the women’s doubles trophy at the $220,000 MPS Group Championships in Florida.
The unseeded duo stunned the top seeded Czech-American combine of Kveta Peschke and Lisa Raymond 6-3 4-6 10-7 in a gruelling one and a half hour battle to nocth up their first title together.
“This was our second tournament together, so we have had a lot more match practice together. 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 $110,000.
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 USA.

Sania Mirza and Chia-Jung Chuang extended their brilliant run by sailing into the final of the $220,000 MPS Group of Championships after a convincing straight set victory over Liga Dekmeijere and Angela Haynes.

The unseeded Indo-Taipei pair carved out a 6-4 6-3 win over the Latvian-American pair in the semifinal match in just one hour and eight minutes.

In the summit clash, Sania and Chuang will fight it out against top seeded pair Kveta Peschke of Czech Republic and Lisa Raymond of United States, who scored a 4-6 7-5 15-13 victory over Barbora Zahlavova Strycov and Caroline Wozniacki in their semifinal match.

Sania and Chuang converted both the breakpoints that came their way to race away with the first set apart from saving two on their own serve.

The second set saw a fierce fight as both the teams traded seven breaks but it was Sania-Chuang who managed to get the maximun out of those chances. They dropped their serve thrice but broke their rivals four times to emerge winners.

Sania Mirza and Chia-Jung Chuang stunned fourth seeded pair of Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Nadia Petrova in straight sets to storm into the doubles semifinals of the $220,000 MPS Group Championships here.

The unseeded Indo-Taipei pair earned a hard fought 6-4 7-5 victory over the formidable American-Russian duo in one hour and 19 minutes.

Sania and Chuang broke their rivals thrice in both the sets while saving five breakpoints en route the convincing win.

The winners will take on American Angela Haynes and Latavian Liga Dekmeijere in the last-four pair stage. Haynes and Dekmeijere upset second seeded Chinese pair of Peng Shuai and Zi Yan 7-6 (3) 6-4 in another quarterfinal match.

Sania Mirza and her Chinese Taipei partner Chia-Jung Chuang reached the doubles quarter-finals of the $220,000 MPS Group Championships here, but not before some late scares.

The Indo-Taipei pair had to fight it out in a marathon three-setter to down Melinda Czink of Hungary and Lilia Osterloh of America 6-0 3-6 10-5 in the first round.

However, Sania-Chuang duo’s route to the last four won’t be a cakewalk as fourth seeded pair of Bethanie Mattek-Sands of America and Nadia Petrova of Russia awaits them in the next round.

Sania’s campaign in the singles already came to a premature end with a straight sets defeat at the hands of seventh seed Alona Bondarenko in he opening round.