The Hindu : Sport : Fortune favours the brave Sania

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Friday, Sep 02, 2005

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Sport

Fortune favours the brave Sania

Karen Crouse

PURPOSEFUL PURSUIT: Shouldering the hopes of the entire nation, Sania Mirza is committed to giving of her best. She beat Maria Elena Camerin of Italy in the second round. — PHOTO: AP

NEW YORK: It figures that Sania Mirza would find inspiration in the first-round upset of Andy Roddick by Luxembourg's Gilles Muller. Mirza, like Muller, knows how it feels to carry a racket bag sagging with the weight of a country's expectations.

Mirza is ranked No. 42 in the world. She is the first woman from India to grace the top 100. After weathering the wind and Maria Elena Camerin 6-4, 1-6, 6-4 in a second-round match on Wednesday afternoon at Armstrong Stadium, Mirza said Muller's monumental victory made her feel ``that you can do it, too, like a lot of people out there who are coming out of the odds.''

Mirza, 18, does not appear to lack self-confidence. Mirza showed up to her post-match news conference wearing a T-shirt that said, ``I'm cute?'' and offered by way of reply an off-colour equivalent of ``Duh.''

At Wimbledon, where she lost in the second round to the 2004 U.S. Open champion, Svetlana Kuznetsova, her T-shirt read like a feminist manifesto: ``Well-behaved women rarely make history.''

`Just a T-shirt'

Asked about her wardrobe statements, Mirza did not bother to hide her exasperation. ``I don't think you should take a lot of things seriously that I wear,'' she said. ``Let's just put it that way. It's just a T-shirt.''

``I can say what I want to,'' she added. ``I don't need to wear it on my T-shirt. I think I like to be 18 sometimes.''

Mirza hits with the same conviction with which she speaks. Her groundstrokes are powerful, especially her forehand, which she hits with all the force that her 5-foot-7, 130-pound frame can muster. Her go-for-broke approach produced 56 unforced errors (versus 36 winners) in a stiff breeze.

``You really have to keep moving,'' Mirza said, ``because you have no idea till the last second where the ball is going to go. Toss is all over the place on the serve. I'm just happy I came through because I guess it's just giving me more and more practice for the bigger matches I'm hopefully going to play.''

Hopefully? Mirza, who won her first WTA title in February in her hometown, Hyderabad, then said: ``I'm feeling the ball good. I guess I'm just playing the best tennis I've ever played. Just feels like I'm improving on a daily basis.''

Special Correspondent reports:

Sania Mirza flirted with danger more often than not, but was rewarded for her bravery with a third round entry at the Flushing Meadows. The 18-year-old Hyderabadi recorded a 6-4, 1-6, 6-4 victory over the 23-year-old Maria Elena Camerin in a gripping contest at the Armstrong Stadium. Sania takes on the 43rd-ranked Marion Bartoli of France in the third round.

Though she allowed the momentum to slip after winning the first set, and was an early break down in the decider, Sania fought like a champion in overcoming the negative trend, in the contest that spilled past the two-hour mark.

She thus matched her record at the Australian Open when she reached the third round, and may perhaps better it.

``I guess I'm playing the best tennis I've ever played (but) it's always one match at a time. You can't just jump ahead,'' said Sania.

``It's very nice when you have people from your own country and the country you don't belong to cheering you on, so much crowd support, especially where you don't belong.''

Sania was on the cruise mode in the first set as she started briskly, breaking Camerin in the second and fourth games, that saw her race up to a 5-2 lead despite being broken in the third game. However, Sania erred and missed two setpoints, one on her serve in the ninth game and the other in the tenth.

Fine touch

The Indian ace was in fine touch and was spanking winners with customary ease. Sania played a judicious mix of slice and spin with uncharacteristic patience in setting up her third setpoint, putting the seal with a delightful backhand winner down the line. Camerin put her forehand long in losing the set.

Though she hit as many as 15 winners in that first set, that compared nicely against her opponent's two, Sania made a few silly errors that annoyed her no end.

It was thus no surprise that Sania allowed the Italian take a 2-0 lead in the second set, getting broken in the first game. Quite mysteriously, Sania let Camerin hit a stroke unchallenged as she seemed to have hurt her finger and ended up facing two breakpoints in the first game.

Unsure with volleys

She had been working on her volleys with coach John Farrington in recent weeks, but Sania was awfully unsure with the volleys this day that placed her in considerable trouble.

Camerin had beaten the 21st-seeded Dinara Safina of Russia in the first set, and showed her mettle by clawing her way back into the match. She broke Sania for the second time in the second set to take a 4-1 lead. Sania had saved a clutch of breakpoints in that fifth game, but put a forehand volley into the net in dropping serve.

Camerin continued to call the shots in the second set, teasing Sania with her retrieving skills. Sania dropped serve for the third time in the seventh game, as Camerin hammered a forehand winner to even the score. The Italian took a 2-0 lead in the third set, but Sania won the next four games to swing the fortunes in her favour. That was a temporary recovery as the Indian girl lost a chance to go up 5-2 as she missed two breakpoints in the seventh game. Worse, Sania allowed the momentum slip as she got broken in the eighth game.

However, Sania fought back with a flurry of winners to break back in the ninth game. After being 0-30, Sania won the next four points to move into the third round.

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