DOHA, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- Second seed Zheng Jie from China beat fourth seed
Sania Mirza from India in full sets thriller to claim the women's singles title
at the Asian Games tennis tournament here on Wednesday.
23-year-old Zheng needed one hour and 45 minutes to claim a 6-4,1-6, 6-1
triumph over Mirza, who was cheered by a roaring Indian crowd at the center
court of the Khalifa International Tennis and Squash Complex in Doha.
"The voice affected me, because I could not calm myself down, so for the
first and second sets, I played quite conservatively, I thought I played in a
soccer match," said Zheng, who used to play in India Open in 2005, describing
the playing atmosphere as "terrible".
"But in the deciding set, I played more aggressively, and tried to transfer
the pressure from me to Mirza. I am under pressure but I think I've handled
well," added Zheng, capturing three breaks to win the third set at 6-1 and the
whole match.
The two met each other once at WTA Hyderabad Open, India, in 2005 when Mirza
defeated Zheng 6-1, 2-6, 6-3 in the round of 16 and held on to win the first and
sole title in her career.
"I thought I served pretty well at the beginning, but then I started making
some mistakes. I am a bit disappointed with how it went but it was a good
match," said Mirza, who overpowered China's top seed Li Na in the semifinals on
Tuesday.
