Sania goes down fighting

The Indian challenge in the NECC-ITF women's tournament ended in contrasting ways, in the quarter-finals at the Deccan Gymkhana courts in Pune on Thursday.

Sixth seed Sania Mirza went down fighting to second seed Jennifer Schmidt of Austria in a pulsating three-set match that lasted more than two hours. Schmidt won via the tie-breaker at 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7-3).

However, Pune challenger and last year's winner Radhika Tulpule went down tamely to Germany's Kateryna Bondarenko at 6-0, 6-2. This is the second time the German challenger has handed out a straight games defeat to Radhika, having earlier beaten her in the Mumbai leg last week.

The semi-finalist of the Mumbai leg, third-seed Suchanan Viratprasert was the other player to make an exit, when she was comprehensively beaten by fifth-seed Ipek Senoglu of Turkey 6-3, 6-4. Senoglu will play Schmidt in the semi-finals.

Varana Marie Beller of Germany, who had shocked eighth-seed Sonal Phadke in the pre-quarter-finals on Wednesday yesterday, maintained her winning streak, downing Angul Amanmuradova of Uzbekistan in straight sets to earn a berth opposite Bondarenko in the other semi-final.

The Jennifer Schmidt-Sania Mirza clash, which turned out to be the best of the tournament, saw the Indian ace and winner of the ITF women's title in the Philippines recently, start in stormy fashion, winning the opening game by putting across two sizzling aces.

Sania came very near to breaking Jennifer's serve in the sixth game after the first set went on serve. But, despite committing a double-fault, the visitor held serve to win the game and level the score 3-3. A break in the eighth game, however, saw Sania break Jennifer's serve, and hold on to her own serve in the ninth game to win the set 6-3.

The second set saw the Austrian serving with power and precision and hitting both flanks. She bounced back into the game by breaking Sania's serve in the second and eighth games despite dropping her own serve in the third game, and wrapped up the game and set at 6-3 to level the score.

Like in Mumbai, it was once again so near yet so far for Sania. The Hyderabad challenger, who had gone down fighting to Domunika Luzarova of the Czech Republic in the quarter-finals, once again found herself outslugged by the fiddle-fit Austrian when it mattered most.

Sania found her serve broken in the very first game but broke back in the sixth game to level. The match went with serve up to six-all before the powerful serving Austrian went on to clinch a three-nil lead to clinch the tie-break and the match.

The 19-year-old Jennifer, winner of her first ITF $10,000 title in Algeria last July said, ''Unlike in the quarter-final round yesterday when a tummy upset made me go sluggish, today I went on playing better and better to ultimately turn the tables on the competitive Indian challenger.''

Jennifer said she played to a plan and strategy to get the better of her opponent.

''I tried to slice top spin and relied on my serves and hard stroke-play to upset the apple-cart of the Indian challenger.''

Results:

Quarter-finals: Varana Marie Beller (Ger) beat Akgul Amanmuradova (UZB) 6-4, 6-1; Kateryna Bondarenko (Ger) beat Radhika Tulpule (Ind) 6-0, 6-2; Ipek Seoglu (Tur) beat Suchanan Viratprasert (Thai) 6-3, 6-4; Jennifer Schmidt (Aut) beat Sania Mirza (Ind) 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (3).