Sania in Pattaya Open quarters, to play Tamarine Tanasugarn

Bangkok, Feb 13 : India’s Sania Mirza entered the quarter-finals of the Pattaya Open with a 6-4, 6-0 demolition of Russian qualifier Vitalia Diatchenko here Thursday.

The Indian broke the 18-year-old Diatchenko five times in the match to triumph in almost an hour.
Sania, ranked 126, will next play sixth-seeded Tamarine Tanasugarn of Thailand who beat Portugese Neuza Silva 6-3, 6-2.

The Indian and the Thai have met twice before and are levelled one each. But Sania had beaten her in their last meeting in 2007 here.

Diatchenko, who had upset third seeded Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia in the first round, had no answers to Sania’s powerful ground-strokes.

The two held their serves till the eighth game of the first set before Sania broke her to wrap the set.

Sania then went for the kill in the second set, dominating from the first game. Such was her grip that she did not allow the 196-ranked Russian win a single game.