Sania storms into Gaz de France's Rd 2

New Delhi: India's Sania Mirza has advanced to the second round of the Open Gaz de France - $600,000 WTA Tier II tournament.

After her average Australian Open campaign, Sania Mirza finally found her rhythm as the Indian tennis ace broke sixth-seed and world number 16, Italian national Flavia Pennetta three times to register a 6-2, 7-6 first-round victory.

The Coubertin stadium crowd was treated to an impressive match with two exciting talents testing each other and eventually Sania had the last laugh in what seemed to be an 85-minute groundstroke exhibition.

Sania dropped only nine points on serve, but had to fight back in the second set from 5-2 down, saving a set point.

Both the players came up with an awesome display during the match and both remained mostly on their respective baselines, hardly coming to the net.

The first set saw both exchanging break before Sania, cheered by the crowd in her first appearance at the Open Gaz de France, raised her game and pocketed the first set breaking her opponent thrice in the process.

In the second set, Pennetta, however, looked determined to turn the table on the Indian ranked 16 rungs lower than her and the Italian raced to a 4-1 lead but Sania came back strongly to level it 5-5 and save a set point as well.

This certainly frustrated Pennetta, who briefly lost her concentration and Sania held her serve to stretch it to tie-breaker.

The tie-breaker also had the crowd on the edge of the seat with the first four points lost by the servers. Sania did not lose her cool and came back from behind to win the tie-break and seal the match.

Later a beaming Sania thanked the crowd for supporting her and said she was happy to play in the Open Gaz de France for the first time.

Earlier, Sania, partnering South African Liezel Huber, reached the second round of the women's doubles event with a facile 6-1, 6-4 win against the pair of Liga Dekmeijere and Jasmine Woehr of Germany.

Sania meets Tatiana Golovin in the second round after the unseeded French teenager beat Marta Domachowska of Poland 6-0, 7-5 in another first round game.

The win over 16th-ranked Pennetta is her third against a top-20 player.

(With inputs from UNI)