The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : A fascinating road show

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Sep 19, 2005

Sport

Sport - Tennis

A fascinating road show

Amitabha Das Sharma

KOLKATA: The monsoon showers, which have been lashing the city for the past few days, stopped briefly to let the country's biggest women's tennis show to take centrestage. For the sponsors of the $170,000 WTA tournament — Sunfeast — it was time to give the top players of the world a time to feast under the balmy afternoon sun here on Sunday.

A road show was organised for the visiting players and the sport-loving denizens to have a look at the city's boulevards, dotted with magnificent structures of the colonial past. A series of five horse-drawn buggy (the name for open carriages here) took the guests out on the merry trip.

Green turf

It traversed through the city's economic and administrative hub to reach the expansive green turf, Maidan, the nerve-centre of the city's sporting activity.

The cheerful party finally headed for the promenade by the Ganges with twin bridges across the river — the famous Howrah Bridge and its later cousin Vidyasagar Setu (bridge). A brief stop-over at the Princep Ghat (quay) made it more memorable to the likes of Galina Voskobeva (Russia), Ryoko Fuda (Japan), Melinda Czink (Hungary), Maria Elena Camerin, Antonella Serra Zanetti (both Italy), Laura Pous Tio, Aranxta Parra Santonja (both Spain), Emmanuelle Gagliardi (Switzerland) and Sunita Rao (U.S.).

WTA official Kirsten Wallace, who was part of the road show, thoroughly enjoyed the experience on her first trip to the city.

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