Sania Mirza’s demolition drive was halted by world number two and defending champion Maria Sharapova in the quarterfinals of the Acura Classic Women’s tennis tournament here.

The unseeded Indian suffered a 6-2 6-1 loss to her more fancied Russian opponent in just 61 minutes yesterday in a repeat of their 2005 US Open pre-quarters match.

The 31-ranked Sania, unseeded this week, had upset 18th ranked Shahar Peer and world number 14 Dinara Safina en route to the last eight stage here. She had also defeated 17th ranked Patty Schnyder of Switzerland and Tatiana Golovin of France, ranked 19th, last week at Stanford.

Sania is set to gain 110 points from her exploits at the USD 1.3 million WTA Tier I event to break into world’s top-30 players for the first time when WTA updates its rankings chart on Monday.

Sharapova, who advanced to the semifinals, will next face the winner of the match between Venus Williams and Anna Chakvetadze.

Sharapova began the match by winning eight of the first nine points to take a 2-0 lead. The top seed lost only five points in the next three games as she increased her lead to 5-1 before wrapping up the opener in just 29 minutes.

The second set followed a similar script with Sharapova breaking Sania at love. The Indian made matters worse for herself as she threw away the third game by committing two double faults.

The 20-year-old Hyderabadi, making her first quarterfinal appearance here, did manage to break Sharapova in the fourth game but the Russian broke back to sweep the final three games and seal the match.

“I had a good start and was able to play my game. The two keys were serve and return. Sania is a solid player so it’s good to get some matches like I’ve won this week behind my back,” Sharapova, who is playing her first tournament after her fourth-round loss in the Wimbledon, said.

Sania has already crashed out of doubles after the Indian and her Israeli partner Shahar Peer lost their second-round match on Thursday.