Anastasia Myskina destroys Sania Mirza
30th May 2006
Indian super-star Sania Mirza did not have such a super day when Myskina beat her quite easily 6-4 6-1 in less than an hour of play in the first round of Roland Garros.
Nastya who went out last year in the opener, got broken already in the first game but quickly recovered by winning the next two games. The set went with serve till 5-4 before Nastya managed to break Mirza to take the set 6-4 after half an hour.
Mirza hit too many unforced errors and not enough winners to become a dangerous opponent for Nastya who on the other side came up with 4 aces, 21 winners and ´only´ 25 unforced errors. Despite another early break, Nastya stayed focused throughout the rest of the match and sailed to victory by converting her first match point by hitting a backhand winner. After her win Nastya had a huge smile on her face which shows that this first win after her win in 2004 means a lot for the Russian.
Sitting in the players´ box was Larissa Savchenko-Neiland, the Fed Cup´s assistant coach who has been travelling with Nastya for the whole clay season now and also attending was Jens Gerlach. Yes, the German is back from wherever he was and hopefully our personal fave journalist Matt Cronin can help a-m.com trying to figure out what the deal was in the last couple of weeks.
In round two Nastya meets Melinda Czink from Hungary. Czink beat Sandra Kloesel in three sets. The match will be played on Thursday. Nastya is playing doubles again this year. She teams up with Elena Likhovtseva which is a surprise since they usually don´t play Slam doubles together. In the first round they meet Yulia Beygelzimer (UKR)/ Eva Birnerova (CZE). Check back for the schedules!
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