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.

Indian ace Sania Mirza has climbed up three places to 35 in the women’s singles tennis rankings released by the WTA on Monday.

Mirza has 633 ranking points in the list headed by Belgian world number one Justine Henin, who has 4457.

The Indian is ranked 36th in doubles.

There was no change in the top 15 singles places.

Wimbledon champion Venus Wiliams is ranked 16th despite her winning the Grand Slam event this month.

Younger sister Serena stays eighth as the players gear up for the final Grand Slam event of the year, the US Open starting in New York on Aug 27.

Third seed Sania Mirza sailed into the second round of the $175,000 WTA Western & Southern Financial Group Women’s Open with a straight set win against unseeded American Abigail Spears on Monday.

Spears tried her best against the Indian but Sania never allowed her any leeway and cruised to a comprehensive 6-4, 6-3 win.

Sania’s serve stood her in good stead as she won 69 per cent of her first serve points.
Getting into her stride

In both the sets, the Hyderabadi had to shrug off her inertia but once she settled into her strides, there was no looking back.

Spears raced to a 3-0 lead in the first set before Sania hit back with vengeance and won six of the next seven games to pocket the set.

In the second set as well, Sania was a break down before she stepped on gas and swept aside her opponent.

The world No. 38 is on the same end of the bracket as top-seeded Russian Anna Chakvetadze, but would not face former champion Patty Schnyder until the final.

Made to work hard

At Los Angeles, Former World No. 1 Marat Safin battled past Australia’s Chris Guccione 6-3, 6-7, 7-6(2) in the opening round of the ATP Countrywide Classic on Monday.

Third seed Safin, who sacked his long-time coach Alexander Volkov last week after a run of poor results, clinched the match after the pair had duelled for just over two hours.

Playing in his first tournament since losing to Roger Federer in the third round of Wimbledon last month, Safin unleashed eight aces against his left-handed opponent, four of them in the third set.