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February 5, Sania Mirza won over Catalina Castano of Columbia in the first round of the $170000 WTA Tour tennis event in Pattaya, Thailand. She took break last week after the Australian Open Grand Slam.

Mirza was not best in the first set. She got off to a bad start, dropping her serve with a double-fault to fall behind 2-0. Although she recovered to lead 5-3, she failed to find any consistency and then netted a backhand when building a set point at 5-4. Sania Mirza’s more powerful game gave Castano little chance in the second set.

Sania Mirza said that she started a little slow, and she was trying to get a feel of how Castano played. She also said that she never played with Castano. She said that she had finished the first set at 5-4, but from the tiebreak onwards she played like she wanted to play and she stopped giving any easy points.

At the same time, Sania Mirza slipped one place to 49 in the singles charts of the latest WTA Tour tennis rankings.

In the second round Sania Mirza will meet either world no.83 Yung jan Chan of chinest Taipei or local challenger 85th ranked Tamarine Tanasugarn. Maria Sharapova held her position at the top of the table followed by Justine Henin Hardenne and Amelie Mauresmo.

Chennai, on January 26, Indian Captain Rahul Dravid said that Sourav Ganguly, Harbhajan Singh, Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Zaheer Khan would not play in the third one day match at Chepauk. He clearly expressed about the team composition when he addressed the customary media conference. The captain’s emphasis was who would rest in Chennai rather than who would actually play.

Robin Uthappa and Gautam Gambir will be the opening batsmen and only two of the three spinners (Harbhajan Singh, Anil Kumble and Ramesh Powar) will be in the eleven. This was the menu from the team management for the Chennai One-Day International. The decision to rest their four key players has a lot to do with the cushion that they have now though Dravid underlined his desire to win this match too.

The spinners will have a lot of work to do on a wicket that looks good for close to 600 runs for the match. By bringing back Yuvaraj Singh and Suresh Raina, India have their spinning options along with Sachin Tendulkar. So, India will take the field on a high, daring to do whatever they feel like doing if they win the toss: bat first or bowl first.

Brain Lara has a problem with his knee and was reportedly declared fit but sources close to his sponsers were quite clear that he would not take any risks here. Lara said that he was not hundred percent fit. Chris Gayle will also have a good role to play in West Indies’ fortunes as a all-rounder. The West Indies middle-order is weak as ever.

Sania reached women’s singles second round:

January 16, The world 53 rank Sania Mirza awarded off the challenge of Ukranian Olga Savchuk to reach the women’s singles second round of the Australian Open Tennis. Sania over come Olga 6-3, 7-5 at the first Grand Slam of the season. The 53rd ranked Indian on her experience to make the most of Olga’s double faults and unforced errors. In the next match Samia will play against Japan’s Aiko Nakamura.

Olga committed as many as six double faults in the first set. Sania, broke once in the second set, made amends to break back twice and wrap up the set in 46 minutes.

After the match, Sania said that she was a a more complete player those days, she belived she had more than when she was 30 in the world, She played much better tennis that day then she did then. she also said that she felt a lot better, probably the serve was her weakest point right then, but it was not exactly a weakness, but it was not a strength.

Sania said that Tennis was really growing in India as a sport. She added that she got many messages that day from people saying that they were going to sleep early in the morning to see her match on TV.

Australian Open dream of Top-seed Maria Sharapova almost evaporated as Kim Clijsters showed the form that has made her a favourite. US Open holder and World No.2 Sharapova did not look a champion-in-waiting as she dragged herself around the court to post a 6-3, 4-6, 9-7 win over French women Camille Pin.

Triple champion Hingis also showed awesome form, demolishing Nathalie Dechy of France 6-0, 6-2. Among the men australia’s 19th seed Lleyton Hewitt faught back from lossing the opening two sets to down American qualifier Michael Russel 3-6, 2-6, 6-3, 6-3.