Thursday, September 21 2006 12:41 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Kolkata: India's glamorous tennis star Sania Mirza, striving to arrest the downslide in her rankings, would have to contend with Germany's Sandra Kloesel in the second round of the 175,000 WTA Sun feast Open here today (21 Sep, 2006).

The gritty Kloesel serves a warning to Sania as she edges out higher-ranked Russian Galina Voskoboeva 7-6 (7-5) 5-7 6-4 after a nearly three-hour marathon battle at the centre court of the Netaji Indoor stadium yesterday (20 Sep, 2006).

Sania has made short work of qualifier and compatriot Rushmi Chakravarthi in her lung opener Tuesday (19 Sep, 2006).

Klosel, ranked 123 in the world, fends off a tough challenge from the big serving Russian, who sends down as many as 18 aces during the opening round clash.

However, Kloesel keeps her cool and triumphs in the end.

The winner of the Sania-Klosel tie would clash with fourth seed France's Aravane Rezai, who gets past Tatiana Poutchek of Belarus in straight sets 6-2 6-1 in a second round duel.

Meanwhile, Chakravarthi's campaign in the tournament ends when she goes down in the doubles opening round partnering Sandy Gumulaya of Indonesia.

The pair fails to find its bearing and lost to the Czech-Indonesian combination of Hana Sromova and Angelique Widjaja 1-6, 0-6 in only 47 minutes.

The tournament sees its first injury-induced result when the Uzbek pair of Akgul Amanmuradova and Iroda Tulyaganova has to surrender their match midway when the former sustained a right ankle strain during the third set. Their Ukrainian opponents Yulia Beygelzimer and Yuliana Fedak make it to the second round with the score reading 7-6 (8-6) 7-5 and 3-0.