After receiving a wild-card to play in her maiden Tier I WTA event, Sania Mirza said she would take part in the Nasdaq-100 Open in Miami, Florida, as an "injury-free player".
The 19-year-old, who was recuperating from an ankle injury that began to trouble her at the Australian Open, received a wild card to play in the USD 3 million tournament starting on March 23.
| |||||||||||
Sania, who created history becoming the first Indian to win a WTA Open at Hyderabad after showing her prowess by reaching the third round of Australian Open, would leave for USA on March 19 and was confident of putting up a good show in Florida.
The Hyderabad girl said she did not make any special preparation for this tournament and she would be going without much expectation as it was a Tier I event with the world's best in action.
"I will play my game and try to progress as far as I could," she said even as her family members were busy looking after her mother Naseema who underwent a surgery on Tuesday.
Sania's father Imran Mirza said 75 per cent of the ankle injury had healed and the rest would subside on its own.
"She does not have much worry about the ankle. The stakes are high and we will have to see how far she can go in the Nasdaq Open," he said.
Imran was expecting Sania to do well since she had earlier won a couple of tournaments in Miami, where the weather "suits her as it dry and hot like in Hyderabad."
The cream of women's tennis including Serena Williams, Venus Williams, Maria Sharapova, Svetlana Kuznestsova and Ananstasia Myskina are likely to take part in the tournament.
Jessica Kirkland (USA), Sesil Karatantcheva (Bulgaria), Angela Haynes (USA), Viktoriay Kutuzova (Ukraine), Anna Tatishvili (Georgia) and Jamea Jackson (USA) are the other wild card entrants.
