Monday, June 20 2005 21:06 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

London: India's Sania Mirza made a winning start to her Wimbledon campaign beating Japan's Akiko Morigami in three sets to move into the second round at the All England Tennis Club in London today (Jun 20, 2005).

Sania, ranked 75th in the latest ranking list, beat Morigami, ranked four places above her, 6-3 3-6 8-6 in the opening match on Court 17 in nearly two hours.

The 18-year-old from Hyderabad, who advanced to the third round of Australian Open this year before losing to eventual winner Serena Williams, will now play sixth seed and US Open champion Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia, who hammered local girl Rebecca Llewellyn 6-0 6-1.

After overpowering Akiko to win the first set, Sania was on the defensive in the second set with Morigami breaking the Indian in the eighth game to go 5-3 up. But Sania immediately hit back forcing two break points in the next game but in the end Morigami made it 1-all converting her third set point.

Sania began the third set on the wrong footing as Akiko forced three break points. Though the Indian managed to make it 30-40 the Japanese made full use of her third chance to take an early advantage in the decider.

Sania tried her best in the next game forcing a number of break points but Akiko managed to hold serve and go 2-0 up.

However, Sania was in no mood to let thing go awry, as she first held serve and then broke right back to even the set at 2-2 forcing three break points on the Japanese serve.

Sania soon lost her serve again as Akiko made it 4-2 only for the counter punching Indian to claw back to 4-4 forcing another break. The scoreline than read 6-6 when the Indian made things difficult for her opponent as she held her serve before breaking Akiko's serve to clinch the issue.