BOMBAY, 9 September 2005 — India is often self-described as a nation of spectators. We readily applaud success and, in a trice, turn contemptuous to a sudden setback to our hopes. No set of sportsmen epitomize this better than cricketers, who have been foisted on the totem pole and then brought down with a thud. So, it was a surprise of all surprises when the national reaction to teenage tennis star Sania Mirza’s defeat to top-seeded Russian Maria Sharapova was calm and sympathetic. In fact the superlatives were not dropped and more added.
If one were to go by the ultimate scores, it might look as if the match was one-sided. But if you carefully analyze the young Indian girl’s game, a conclusion will be reached that she did not do too badly at all. There was a rare element of daring in her game. Although Sania had realized that she was up against an opponent ranked nearly 50 notches above her, she went all out to play her attacking strokes. Any other player would have played safe and tried her best to keep the ball in play. But not Sania, she used her best-known virtue, the powerful forehand and back-hand ground strokes right from the start.
The way she had started the match with two thundering down-the-line forehand drives, the World No. 2 was a bit rattled and took some time to settle down. This is where her experience of playing at the highest level put her in good stead. Inexperienced as she is, Sania, however, trusted her power. She scored winners, as she had done in pervious rounds, but she also committed far too many unforced errors. The match analysis in the end showed both player having hit almost equal number of winners. What tilted the balance so much in favor of the glamorous Russian was the number of marginal errors that her opponent committed in her determination to play powerfully.
This gumption of the young Indian player who drew a big crowd of admirers at the center-court, won her many friends. Millions of her followers who sat well past midnight to watch the match on television also appreciated her predicament and applauded her bold approach. There must have been hardly anyone who must have been let down by Sania even though disappointment of her losing the match could not be hidden.
When one looks back on the tremendous graph in international tennis that the 18-year old Hyderabadi girl has notched for herself, it is hard to believe that she took to tennis only by chance and just for the heck of trying something different from swimming she was so fond off from the age of six. She had to cross a row of tennis courts on the way to the swimming pool at the Nizam Club in Hyderabad. She stood there watching little girls and boys hitting the tennis balls with rackets that looked so huge in their hands. She took one from a child and started hitting the ball for fun.
Sania would get into this routine everyday on her way to the swimming pool. She was one day watched by the club coach who advised her to take to tennis. Little did the coach realize that a dozen years later, the little, giggly girl would one day corner all the applause on the center court of the biggest tennis center in the world, the center-court at Forest Hills.
Vijay Amritraj, himself a one-time quarter-finalist at the US Open, said after the match that there is no doubt that Sania needs to tighten her game and build a more accurate first service.
“But there is no finding fault with her approach of playing attacking tennis. She has some of the best ground strokes in the game.” Both Sharapova and oft time winner Venus Williams agree and predict a bright future for her.
And what did Sania herself feel after her momentous match. “I am disappointed that I could not control my service and some easy returns. But then I was concentrating so hard on attacking.” While many of her well-wishers said that she must go a bit easy on her highly gifted forehand, she sticks to following the same style of play. “I will not stop attacking my opponent. That is how I play and that is how I enjoy playing. May be with more match-play I will be able to develop better control.”
That is the brave new world of the emerging female tennis stars and Sania Mirza is going to be the head of the new brigade that plays to enjoy the game. If cricket can have its Sehwags and Afridis, why can’t tennis have a few like Sania Mirza.
