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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.

Sania Mirza has crashed out of the first round of the MPS Group Championships tennis.

The unseeded Indian went down to seventh seed Alona Bondarenko of Ukraine 4-6, 3-6 here Monday.

Sania Mirza rose to No.68, an improvement of 19 places, in the doubles ranking on the back of her strong showing in the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami where she reached the last-four stage with partner Chia-jung Chuang of Taiwan. However, Sania remained at No.100 on the singles list in the WTA rankings released Monday.