LONDON: Sania Mirza and American partner Bethanie Mattek-Sands knocked down the sixth seed Desirae Krawczyk and Alexa Guarachi to move to the second round of the women’s double program at the Wimbledon championship on Thursday.
Sania and Mattek-Sands somewhat rusty at the beginning but once they got their rhythms, they dominated the match and won 7-5, 6-3 against the American-Chile combination in one hour and 27 minutes.
The pressure was placed on the Indo-American pair at the start of the match when Mattek-Sands presented the third game featuring seven Deuce points.
Americans present three double mistakes in a slow start but eventually hold a game after saving three break points.
Sania and Mattek-Sands also had two occasions to violate their rivals, but America perfected the volley from the net before the left-handed Desira was very well presented in the end.
Guarachi crashed into a width forehand at 15-30 to submit two sets pointing to their rivals in the 12th game.
It was an opportunity that Indo-Americans did not waste with Sania completing a set with Overhead smash.
In the second set, Sania and Mattek-Sands opened a 3-1 advantage when they broke the Guarachi again.
Matte-Sands’s low backhand return was hit again and Sania locked with it with a non-curable smash.
With a pillow 3-1 at hand, Sania and her partner never looked back.
With Ankita Raina took court later with the American partner Lauren Davis, there would be a little history for Indian tennis in the championship like for the first time, two female players from the country competed in the grand main lottery slamming.
For Ankita, it would be the third consecutive appearance in the tennis department, after making a debut at the Australian Open this year.
Sania has become an Indian who competes with the biggest stage of the game since 2005.
Prior to that, India-American-America Ubereri has qualified for US Open US Women in 2004 and also won its first round against Japan Saori Obata before losing to Venus Williams.
Shikha could never make a grand slam main draw again and after that Sania who guarded India was represented at the WTA Tour.
The retreat, Nirupama Vaidyanathan was the first to break the Grand Slam main draw in 1998 at the Australian Open, while Nirupama Mankad played Wimbledon 1971 mixed doubles with Anand Amritraj.