Mirza to face nemesis in third round at US Open

NEW YORK—India’s Sania Mirza advanced to the third round of the US Open with a 6-3, 7-5 victory Thursday over US veteran Laura Granville, booking a revenge match against Russian nemesis Anna Chakvetadze.
Mirza, seeded 26th, blasted six aces and 33 winners past the 60th-ranked American but the 20-year-old prodigy made 33 unforced errors and let two match points slip through her hands before finishing off Granville after 82 minutes. “Once you miss a match point or two, you start thinking every time you have one. That’s when the mental strength comes in,” Mirza said. “It’s about the things you deal with growing up. You are fighting the odds all the time when you come from India. There aren’t many women tennis players from India. It’s times like this when that helps you be mentally tough.”
Mirza next faces sixth seed Chakvetadze, a friend and former junior doubles partner of the Indian who has won four tournaments this year, three of them after beating Mirza. “I met her in the hallway. She said, ‘I’m sick of playing you,’” Mirza said. “Every time I come to a semi-final she is there.” Chakvetadze, who advanced by ousting Australian veteran Nicole Pratt 6-3, 6-4 in 72 minutes, ousted Mirza in a Hobart semi-final in January and defeated her again last month in a Cincinnati semi-final and the final at Stanford.
“I have no pressure on me,” Mirza said. “I just have to go out there and give my best and see what happens.” Mirza accepts that taking risks will boost her unforced errors but going for winners is her path to victory. “If I’m going to play such attacking tennis, there’s very little chance I will have fewer unforced errors,” she said. “You have to be Roger Federer to do that.”
Adored by multitudes in her homeland, Mirza also has cheering from the Indian community in New York for her matches. “I think I have enough Indians everywhere,” Mirza said. “We have so many Indians in New York. I get great support.” Mirza and Granville traded service breaks to open both sets. They did so again later in the first set but Granville double faulted away a break in the eighth game and Mirza held on a forehand winner to take the set in 36 minutes.
Mirza broke Granville twice more early in the second set for a 4-1 lead but Granville battled back, denying Mirza twice on match points in the 10th game to pull level at 5-5. “I was in control most of the time. She was able to raise the level and I wasn’t able to do the same immediately.” Mirza netted a backhand and sent a forehand wide to squander her match points. Granville hit a forehand crosscourt winner on the line to break, Mirza’s appeal to the replay system failing.
“She started playing better,” Mirza said. “I knew I had to hang in there. “What can you do? You lose the actual points and the game. I have to have the mental ability and strength to put it behind me.” Mirza responded by breaking Granville for a seventh time and holding out to win, chasing down an overhead smash and firing an impressive crosscourt winner to deny Granville a break point at 30-30.
“That was the most important point of the match,” Mirza said. “It could have gone anywhere from there.”