Sania advances to third round

Sania Mirza held her nerve in a topsy-turvy second set to beat America's Laura Granville and advance into the third round of the US Open in New York on Thursday.

The Indian ace converted her third match point to overcome Granville 6-3, 7-5 in an hour and 22 minutes in the second round.

She will next face Russia's Anna Chakvetadze, who beat Nicole Pratt 6-3, 6-4.

In a match that saw 12 breaks of serves, Sania nailed the 26-year-old American with superior returns and groundstrokes.

After pocketing the first set in 36 minutes, she started strongly in the second, breaking Granville's serve in the first game itself. It looked like Sania would run away win the game when she got the double break in the fifth game to go up 4-1, but Granville bounced back to make it 4-3.

The 20-year-old Indian failed to close out the match while serving at 5-4, despite being 40-15 in the lead. Starting with a bungled forehand volley, Sania hit a streak of errors to let her opponent level the set.

Unlike the first-round match, where she let Kaia Kanepi stretch the second set into the tie-break and win it, Sania was early on the ball while facing Granville's serve in the eleventh game and took it after a long rally. She served out the set 7-5 to book a place in the third round.

Chakvetadze leads Sania 3-0 in the head-to-head, having got better of the Indian twice during this US Open series. The Russian beat Sania 6-2, 5-7, 6-3 in the Cincinnati semi-finals and then 6-3, 6-2 in the final at Stanford.

Sania plays her doubles first round later in the day when she and partner Bethanie Mattek take on Severine Bremond of France and Serbian Jelena Jankovic.