Melbourne: Sania Mirza drew a tough first-round opponent in Bulgaria's Tsvetana Pironkova for the women's singles event of the Australian Open, the season's first Grand Slam tournament.
Sania, who is placed at 105 in the ranking charts, has not crossed the first-round hurdle in the singles at the Australian Open since 2009 while Pironkova, ranked 48, had made the Wimbledon quarter-finals in 2011.
It will be the first meeting between the two players and Sania, who is coming back to competitive tennis after a knee injury, has just played one tournament in the new season in the run-up to the Australian Open, beginning on Monday. She played in Auckland and lost in the first round of the qualifiers against American Coco Vandeweghe.
If Sania is able to cross the first-round hurdle, she may be up against 28th seed Belgian Yanina Wickmayer, who will open her campaign against Kazakhstan's Galina Voskoboeva.
Sania is the only Indian this year to represent her country in the singles competition at the Australian Open as Somdev Devvarman has withdrawn due to a shoulder injury.
Meanwhile, Chennai youngster Ramkumar Ramanathan will compete as a wildcard entrant in the junior event of the Australian Open.
Ramkumar, ranked 896 in the ATP list, will be accompanied by Hiten Joshi, CEO and Chief Coach of Tamil Nadu Tennis Association (TNTA) and will leave on January 16.
Delhi teen Yuki Bhambri had won the junior Australian Open singles title in 2009 after defeating Germany's Alexandros-Ferdinandos Georgoudas 6-3, 6-1 in the final.
Comments
0 comment