Tennis / Peer loses to top seed in semifinal

Russian top seed Vera Zvonareva raced into the final of the Pattaya Open with an easy 6-1 6-4 win over Israel's Shahar Peer yesterday.

The world number five will take on India's Sania Mirza, who qualified for her first final in 19 months after a drawn out 6-4 5-7 6-1 win over Slovakia's Magdalena Rybarikova.

Zvonareva, a semi-finalist at last month's Australian Open, was untroubled in a one-sided opening set and held on in the second against a resilient Peer to seal the win. She won the first set 6-1 in just 24 minutes.

"I lifted up the level of my playing more than in the previous matches but still I didn't play my best tennis and neither did she," Zvonareva told reporters."The first set was a clean set for me but I made a few unforced errors in the second."

Unseeded Mirza, a mixed doubles champion at the Australian Open, had the upper hand in the first set but survived a stuttering second before overpowering Rybarikova in the decider.

"It wasn't that I was dominating. It was a close match," Mirza said.