Sania Mirza [ Images ] broke her French Open [ Images ] drought with a crushing victory over Alberta Brianti of Italy [ Images ] in the first round at Roland Garros [ Images ] on Wednesday.
The Indian ace, who had never gone beyond the first round in two previous attempts, peppered the 87-ranked Italian with her hard-hitting groundstrokes to score a 6-1, 6-1 victory in under an hour.
Sania returned to the tour last month after a two-and-a-half month injury lay-off and failed to go past the first round in singles in both her warm-up events, in Morocco and Istanbul.
On Wednesday, she didn't let the Parisian clay demoralise her. She served well and once she had taken a 3-0 lead in the first set, she maintained the momentum and never let up the pressure from her forehands against an error-prone opponent.
But the real test awaits the 20-year-old when she clashes with number seven seed Ana Ivanovic [ Images ] of Serbia in the second round.
Ivanovic, who made it to the quarter-final in 2005, beat Sofia Arvidsson of Sweden 6-2, 6-0 in her first round match.
this
Users
Comment
article