Sania Mirza stoops to Eleni Daniilidou in the opening round – Malaysian Open 2012
Indian tennis ace, Sania Mirza, bowed out to the 81st ranked Grecian, Eleni Daniilidou, after fighting hard for an hour and 40 minutes. The final scores in the opening round clash of the BMW Malaysian Open tournament
between the two players were 6-2, 1-6, 6-4.
Ironically, Mirza had won the previous two meetings between the two players; during the Bank of the West Classic 2005 and Acura Classic 2007. At that time she was on top of her game but now she is only better in the doubles category;
hasn’t been performing well when she is playing alone.
The opening set witnessed a cracking battle between the two players for the first few minutes before the Grecian tennis starlet flew away with a lead of 4-1. She had already broken her opponent’s serve twice on her way to this
emphatic lead with Mirza breaking her serve once in the third game.
Mirza’s serve was broken again in the eighth game and that rounded the first set proceedings in the favour of the Grecian. Surprisingly, the Indian starlet came out with an all-round onslaught in the second set; thumping her opponent
on her serves and crushing her down in all departments.
She broke twice in the opening four games to take an empathic lead of 4-0 and just spared a single game for the Grecian before she gobbled up a set triumph with another thumping breakthrough. It was a massive turnaround in the
match and final set was enforced to decide the match.
A swap of breakpoints at the start of the final set kept the scores together at 2-2 but unfortunately, Mirza couldn’t hang in there and lost her serve again in the fifth game that proved lethal for her. The scores were further
pushed to 4-2 in favour of the Grecian.
Mirza fought well but wasn’t skilled enough to break her opponent for the second time in the set to level the scores. She faces another early exit in the tournament.
Eleni Daniilidou progresses to round two and faces the fourth seed wildcard entrant from Australia, Jarmila Gajdosova, who squashed the German athlete, Kathrin Woerle, in a tight three-setter.
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