PTI

London, Jun 25: A struggling Sania Mirza managed to edge past Colombia's Catalina Castano in a tough three setter to advance to the second round of the women's singles event at the Wimbledon Championships here on Tuesday.

Sania, seeded 32, had to toil to earn a 7-6(3) 3-6 6-2 win in the first round against her 29-year-old opponent, who is ranked 146 in the WTA charts.

Both the players were erratic and exchanged many a breaks throughout the match, which lasted two hours and 16 minutes.

Sania, who did not have ideal preparations for the third Grand Slam of the year, even took a medical break in the second set while trailing 1-5.

After pocketing the first set, Sania allowed the Colombian to draw parity but unleashed some furious forehand winners in the deciding set to go on top.

The Indian broke Catalina in the third game of the final set to create lead but dropped the next when the Colombian fired a backhand winner.

Sania again broke her in the fifth and seventh as Catalina could not cash in on the opportunities she created.

Sania was leading 5-2 and comfortably won the set and match looked certain but again error prone Indian gave chances to her opponent to comeback by dropping her serve in the eight game.

However, Sania closed it in the ninth to move to the second round.