The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : Sharapova looks in the right direction

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jun 29, 2004

Sport

Sport - Tennis

Sharapova looks in the right direction

By Nirmal Shekar

LONDON, JUNE 28. She is the best thing that has happened to women's tennis since a teenaged blonde bombshell from Russia, arriving through the time-tested route via sunny Florida, carried her pretty pout, golden ponytail, coquettish smirk and multi-million dollar endorsement-potential into the semifinals of the Wimbledon tennis championships seven years ago.With legs the length of a blockbuster movie queue in India, hourglass curves that catwalk modelling-agents in Paris would give their right arm for, a face that would turn Cindy Crawford green with envy and stroking skills that most 17-year olds in the women's game don't even dare dream of, Maria Sharapova has it all.

Going by recent experience — namely that of the most photographed woman in the history of sport, Anna Kournikova, a semifinalist at Wimbledon at age 16 in 1997 — such an impossible mix of athletic gifts and physical beauty can be counter-productive, especially when you are chasing major titles rather than shallow celebrity and easy money on the show-up, smile and shake-hands social circuit.

But Sharapova, 17, who made the quarterfinals at Wimbledon for the first time in her career today, beating the American veteran Amy Frazier, 31, in a wonderfully entertaining contest 6-4, 7-5, is distinctly undistracted by all the fuss about her looks.

As a tennis player, Sharapova, born in Siberia and whisked off to Nick Bollettieri's at age seven by her father — who had all of $700 in his pocket — is not yet a finished product. The path she has travelled is the one made famous by Ms.A.K. but Sharapova would much rather possess a game of flawless beauty than be celebrated merely for her jawdroppingly stunning looks.

The teenaged Russian was the sensation of the first week here last year and since then she has come a long way, winning three Tour titles — that is three more than a certain Ms.Kournikova won in her entire career — and making her presence felt at the Grand Slam events.

She has matured significantly as a competitor in the last 12 months and this was particularly evident today in times of adversity as Sharapova dug deep and came up with all the right answers to the questions posed by the experienced Frazier.

This is certainly not a woman who would be lured by the route taken by her megastar predecessor. If anything, Sharapova's growing celebrity is, to her, incidental to her career as a talented tennis player whereas, with Kournikova, her tennis was incidental to her celebrity.

There is still a touch of naivete to Sharapova's game but she's been at the top for just about a year and it may not be long before she gets her hands on the silverware that matter. It may not happen here this fortnight, but again, it won't register 8 or 9 on tennis' Ritcher scale should it take place.

The biggest improvement that you can notice in the young woman's game is in her serve. Not only does Sharapova, 6ft tall, serve powerfully, with a high ball toss, but she has the intelligence and skills to place her second deliveries wonderfully well.

Frazier, who upset the French Open champion Anastasia Myskina in the third round, posed a substantial challenge today. She was up 4-2 in the first set and served for the second in the 10th game. But, as well as Frazier played from the baseline, matching double-handed backhand winners with her teenaged opponent, the American sent down 12 double faults, many of them nerve-triggered at critical moments. And this proved rather costly.

Sharapova took control with her forehand and broke back to 4-4 in the first set and that was the second of five games she would win in a row. But, then, in the ninth game of the second set, the Russian double faulted to breakpoint and shovelled a backhand into the net to lose serve.

Given the opportunity to serve out the set, Frazier fell short, sending down a double fault on breakpoint. The sickening sequence stretched to the 12th game when Frazier sent down two double faults to give Sharapova a matchpoint.

Sharapova's return was too close to call on the baseline but the linesman called "out'' and the chair umpire over-ruled the call. The Russian won the replayed point as Frazier put a forehand in the net. ``She has a lot of experience and she can come up with great shots. She is also very confident and smart,'' said Sharapova. "But in the back of your mind you know that you can play tough. I am feeling very good. I feel physically a lot stronger.''

Sharapova will meet Ai Sugiyama of Japan in the quarterfinals. Sugiyama got past Tamarine Tanasugarn of Thailand 6-3, 7-5. In the other quaterfinal in the bottom half of the draw, former champion Lindsay Davenport will play the in-form Croatian Karolina Sprem.

Davenport eased past Vera Zvonareva of Russia 6-4, 6-4 and Sprem beat Magdalena Maleeva 6-4, 6-4.

Bhupathi, Mirnyi exit

Mahesh Bhupathi and Max Mirnyi, the third seeds, went down in three close sets to Julian Knowle (Austria) and Nenad Zimonjic (Serbia and Montenegro) in the third round of the men's doubles championship.

The Indo-Belarussian pair was beaten 6-4, 3-6, 8-6 by Knowle and Zimonjic who played with tremendous confidence and skills right through the 1hr 45m match. The third seeds were broken in the sixth game of the first set but hit back to break their rivals in the fourth of the second as they went on to knot up the match. In the thrilling third set, Knowle and Zimonjic finally broke Mirnyi's serve in the 14th game, the Serbian's volley down the middle closing out the match.

Three Indian boys beaten

India's Karan Rastogi, seeded 12 in the boys' singles championship, was beaten in straight sets in the first round by the 18-year old New Zealander G.D.Jones who won 6-4, 6-4. Rastogi, 17, ranked more than 20 places above his opponent, started on the wrong foot, losing his very first service game and had few chances in a match in which his forehand took leave of him and he was never quite as aggressive as he needed to be.

Jones, for his part, played steady tennis from the back of the court, venturing up only on the odd occasion as he wrapped up the first set without fuss and broke Rastogi's serve in the fifth game of the second set. If a pair of forehand errors cost Rastogi that service game, then when he had two chances to break Jones's serve in the eighth game, once again the errant forehand spelt disaster.

Finally, Jones served out the match in the 10th game in which the boy from Mumbai made three successive unforced forehand errors.

Later in the afternoon, Tushar Liberhan was beaten in the first round too. The Indian lost 7-6 (5), 6-7 (2), 1-6 to Viktor Troicki of Serbia. Liberhan had the match in his grasp, leading by a set and serving for the match at 5-2 in the second. He might not sleep well at all tonight.The procession continued with Divij Sharan losing 1-6, 6-3, 1-6 to Chu-Huan Yi from Chinese Taipei.

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