The Hindu : Sport : All eyes on Sania and Hingis

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Sep 18, 2006
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All eyes on Sania and Hingis

Nandita Sridhar

The Sunfeast Open starts today

PTI

An American of Indian origin, Sunita Rao will hope to get the crowd behind her.

Kolkata: After days of trying to provide logically plausible explanations for a bizarrely consistent decline, Sania Mirza will be a tad relieved to share the centre-stage, spotlight and media space with Swiss Martina Hingis as the Sunfeast Open WTA tennis tournament commences at the Netaji Indoor Stadium on Monday.

There is enough intrigue in both their games and fortunes to up the interest levels. One has a whiplash of a forehand that can frustrate as much as it can elate while the other can usher in a sneaky streak that can effortlessly alter a would-be pounding forehand winner into a subtle drop.

One is forced to bear the weight of a nation's expectations on her 19-year-old shoulders while the other can leave such weighty matters and much more to her countryman named Roger.

One is currently in a rankings descent that alarms as much as her rapid ascent amazed while the other continues doing her bit to elevate eyebrows with a remarkable comeback that has skyrocketed her back into the top-ten.

By the looks of it, the anticipated semifinal clash between the two has enough in it for tennis lovers to salivate. But before that, they would have to deal with a handful of wannabe giant killers, waiting to free themselves off the wannabe tag.

The others

While Hingis-Sania is realistically what the tournament is all about, a couple of others deserve their share of newsprint space. Second seed and last year's finalist Karolina Sprem has enough conviction in her hit-the-ball-hard mantra to brush off her loss to Sania at the US Open this year, while fourth seed Aravane Rezai (finding enough time in between watching Bollywood movies and collecting parrots, to shoot up in the rankings, pile on ITF titles and battle it out with bigwigs like Maria Sharapova and Nicole Vaidisova) can be quite a threat. Ranked 66th in the world, the Frenchwoman, who is playing in just her fourth WTA tournament, will meet Ankita Bhambri in the first round.

Third seed Yuliana Fedak is another player to watch out for.

Rushmi, Sanaa qualify

Sanaa Bhambri came up with another good performance to oust Germany's Sabine Lisicki 7-6(4), 7-5 while Rushmi Chakravarthi defeated junior national champion Tara Iyer 7-5, 6-4, in the final qualifying round. Rushmi will meet Sania in the first round, while Sanaa will clash with Angelique Widjaja.

The results: Final qualifying round: Iroda Tulyaganova (Uzb) bt Sandy Gumulya (Ina) 6-1, 6-3; Chia-Jung Chuang (Tpe) bt Sandhya Nagaraj (Ind) 7-6(4), 6-4; Rushmi Chakravarthi (Ind) bt Tara Iyer (Ind) 7-5, 6-4; Sanaa Bhambri (Ind) bt Sabine Lisicki (Ger) 7-6(4), 7-5.

Monday's schedule: Centre Court: 1 p.m: Tamarine Tanasugarn (Tha) v Kaia Kanepi (Est); followed by Tatiana Poutchek (BLR) v Anne Keothavong (GBR), Abigail Spears (USA) v Akgul Amanmuradova (UZB).; 7.30 p.m: Martina Hingis (Sui) v Melinda Czink (Hun) followed by Aravane Rezai (FRA) v Ankita Bhambri (Ind). Court 1: 1 p.m: Tzipora Obziler (ISR) v Yulia Beygelzimer (UKR); 4 p.m.: Isha Lakhani & Sandhya Nagaraj v Yulia Beygelzimer (UKR)& Juliana Fedak (UKR).

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