Sania in second round of Jr. Aussie Open

Indian junior lass Sania Mirza had a good day at the Australian Open tennis championships, advancing in the girls' singles and doubles on Wednesday.

The Hyderabadi girl, seeded 12th at the Open, defeated Ivana Jovanovich of New Zealand 6-2, 6-4 in a first round match.

She now will face Samantha Stosur of Australia. Stosur defeated Nicole Pitts of the United States 7-5, 6-3 in her first round match.

In the first set, the players traded early breaks after which the Indian broke Ivana in succession to wrap up the set.

In the second set, Sania went ahead early at 2-0 only to drop serve twice to fall behind at 3-4. She raised her game and came back to break Ivana in the eighth and 10th games to finish the match, which took 57 minutes.

The Indian had 34 unforced errors, but seemed to be in control throughout.

Another Indian, Megha Vakharia, who was trailing 2-6, 2-3 to the second seed Marion Bartoli of France when a rain interruption forced the match to be suspended on Tuesday, could not raise her game and lost tamely 2-6, 3-6 on Wednesday.

In the girls' doubles, Sania Mirza and Da-Jung Hong of Korea defeated the American pair of Nicole Pitts and Sunitha Rao 4-6, 6-1, 6-1, while Sasha Abraham and Megha Vakharia lost to the Australian pair of Gabrielle Baker and Adriana Szili 3-2, 2-6 in the first round matches.

In the boys' doubles, Amanjot Singh and Rohan Gajjar also went down to the fourth seeded pair of Brian Baker of the United States and Frank Dancevic of Canada 2-6, 2-6 in a first round match.

The Indo-Korean pair started badly, losing the third game on the Korean's serve only to break back Nicole Pitts in the next game. They wasted two break chances against Pitts in the eighth game and lost the ninth game on Sania's serve to fall behind at 4-5. The American pair won the set on Sunitha's serve after some drama, as they won the set after five deuces in the 10th game.

In the second set, Mirza/Hong broke Rao and Pitts in succession to win four games in a row to go ahead at 5-1. Sania saved a break point and served off the set.

They broke Rao again to start the third set. Sania faced two break points but went on to held the serve with the help of an ace. After which the match turned into a rout of the Americans, as they went up to 5-0, having won 10 games in a row.

The Americans did put up a fight when they took a game off Sania's serve and saved two set points on Pitt's serve, but the Asian pair didn't gave any more chances and converted the third match point.

They now will face the top seeds Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia and Matea Mezak of Crotia in the second round.

In the boys' doubles, Gajjar and Singh started the match with four aces in the first six points they won, but it all went downhill from there as they lost tamely.

In another girls' doubles match, Abraham and Vakharia twice lost serves in both the games to crash out.

Earlier reports:
Amanjot Singh goes down tamely
3 Indians in main draw of Jr. Aussie Open