Easy for Mirza

India's Sania Mirza continued her run of good form in New York by defeating Michelle Larcher de Brito of Portugal 6-3, 6-2 in a US Open first-round tie on Monday.

The 23-year old Mirza, like her opponent, had battled through three qualifying rounds at Flushing Meadows just to gain entry to the main draw and it was tough going to start with against the combative De Brito.

But once she had pocketed the first set, Mirza gained in confidence and she ran away with the second to win in 77 minutes, setting up a second-round tie against 20th-seeded Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. AFP