Tashkent: Sania Mirza overcame a tough challenge from Hana Sromova of the Czech Republic to move into the quarter-finals of the $145,000 Tashkent Open women's tennis on Thursday.
Third seeded Sania made light of a delayed start due to rains to defeat Sromova 6-4 7-5 in the second round match.
In the morning, before the play was suspended, Victoria Azarenka of Belarus and Sun Tiantian of China, both unseeded, advanced to the last eight.
Azarenka defeated qualifier Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia 6-4, 6-4 in an hour and 36 minutes. Cibulkova had knocked out No 7 seed Galina Vosboeva of Russia in the first round.
Sun eliminated Tatiana Poutchek of Belarus, also 6-4, 6-4.
Sania had a scrappy game against Sromova. "I'm just happy to go through," she said later.
"I started playing better in the second set but I was lucky. She (Sromova) had so many set points. It could have gone either way."
Sania, after some initial jitters, seemed to have the game under control when she served for the first set, 5-2 up. But she lost that game, after five deuces, wasting two set points. She made no mistake when serving for the set the second time around but her inconsistency continued to plague her in the second set.
After an early break, Sania found herself 2-5 down and Sromova had three set points before being broken in the eighth game. That sort of steadied Sania and the forehand winners flowed a bit more easily as she won the last five games for the match.
Asked about her quarter-final with Poutchkova, who defeated Olivia Sachez of France 7-5, 6-1 to reach the last 8, Sania replied: "It's going to be a good match. She's one of the players I've known longest, five-six years and we play a similar kind of game."
This is Sania's third straight quarter-final appearance, after her semi-final showing at Kolkata and the quarters in Seoul.
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