subject: Asian Games Tennis Preview: Sania Mirza Vs Tamarine Tanasugarn [print this page] India's Sania Mirza has stormed into the quarter-finals of the womens' singles event at the Asian Games, where she can meet Thailand's Tamarine Tanasugarn.
Sania stands at 166th in the WTA rankings while Tamarine is ranked 108 places higher than her, at 58.
The 2 girls have met four times within the past, and their head-to-head record is even with every winning twice. Their last meeting was at Birmingham on grass, earlier this year. The Thai girl trumped the Indian, on the occasion, and the score-line read four-6, seven-5, vi-1 in Tanasugarn's favour.
Apparently, both of Sania's wins against Tamarine have return within the Thai lady's backyard, in Pataya, Thailand. The last occasion was in June 2009, when the Indian girl prevailed in straight sets, in a very quarter-final match, with the final score reading 7-5, half dozen-4.
Sania's different win came at the same tournament in 2007 when she needed 3 sets to get past her Thai opponent within the second round. The Indian girl took the primary set vi-4, only to work out the Thai lady rebound by winning the second vi-2. Sania was too string for Tamarine within the third set, and closed out the match with a facile half-dozen-1.
The first meetng between the girls took place during a initial round match at Eastbourne in 2005, when Sania began well taking the first set 6-1. The Thai woman was lucky to win the second set during a tie-breaker, barely edging it at 8-6. The third set was a laborious-fought 7-5 victory for Tamarine.
Interestingly, both matches won by the Thai woman were on grass courts, while Sania won both her matches on hard court surfaces. That ought to be a point within the Indian women' favour prior to the Asian Games quarter-final meeting. Age is another factor that favours Sania who is 9 years younger than Tamarine.
That said, Tamarine has had a better singles record, on the tour, recently, than her Indian rival. In her last 10 games, Tamarine has lost simply 2, winning the WTA tournament at Osaka, Japan, within the process. Distinction this with Sania's performance; she has won five and lost 5 of her last ten professional matches. A telling statistic reveals that the Indian lady has lost her last four singles matches on the tour, while her Thai quarter-final opponent at the Asian Games has won eight of her last nine.
Sania has been beset by injury recently and that might be a reason for the decline in her singles game. However, she didn't enable that to return in the approach of her silver medals in both singles and doubles events at the recently held Commonwealth Games in Delhi.
