Sania Mirza Funny Momments 1

Asian Games Tennis Preview: Sania Mirza Vs Tamarine Tanasugarn

India's Sania Mirza has stormed into the quarter-finals of the womens' singles event at the Asian Games, where she will meet Thailand's Tamarine Tanasugarn.

Sania stands at 166th in the WTA rankings while Tamarine is ranked 108 places above her, at 58.

The two women have met four times in the past, and their head-to-head record is even with each winning twice. Their last meeting was at Birmingham on grass, earlier this year. The Thai girl trumped the Indian, on the occasion, and the score-line read 4-6, 7-5, 6-1 in Tanasugarn's favour.

Interestingly, both of Sania's wins against Tamarine have come in the Thai girl's backyard, in Pataya, Thailand. The last occasion was in June 2009, when the Indian girl prevailed in straight sets, in a quarter-final match, with the final score reading 7-5, 6-4.

Sania's other win came at the same tournament in 2007 when she needed three sets to get past her Thai opponent in the second round. The Indian girl took the first set 6-4, only to see the Thai girl rebound by winning the second 6-2. Sania was too string for Tamarine in the third set, and closed out the match with a facile 6-1.

The first meeting between the women took place in a first round match at Eastbourne in 2005, when Sania began well taking the first set 6-1. The Thai girl was lucky to win the second set in a tie-breaker, barely edging it at 8-6. The third set was a hard-fought 7-5 victory for Tamarine.

Interestingly, both matches won by the Thai girl were on grass courts, while Sania won both her matches on hard court surfaces. That should be a point in the Indian girls' favour ahead of the Asian Games quarter-final meeting. Age is another factor that favours Sania who is nine years younger than Tamarine.

That said, Tamarine has had a better singles record, on the tour, recently, than her Indian rival. In her last 10 games, Tamarine has lost just two, winning the WTA tournament at Osaka, Japan, in the process. Contrast this with Sania's performance; she has won five and lost five of her last ten professional matches. A telling statistic reveals that the Indian girl has lost her last four singles matches on the tour, while her Thai quarter-final opponent at the Asian Games has won eight of her last nine.

Sania has been beset by injury recently and that could be a reason for the decline in her singles game. However, she did not allow that to come in the way of her silver medals in both singles and doubles events at the recently held Commonwealth Games in Delhi.

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