Sania Mirza
This blog is in no ways a disrespect to what Sania has achieved in the last one year. Its true that she has jumped over 150 places in the WTA ranking not done by any women tennis player in the same time and has also reached 4th round of a Grandslam Singles not done by any Indian in last 18 years. But I really cannot understand what this mania is all about. Are we Indians ready to accept that playing a number one/number two in the world is an achievement in itself?. At 18 years Maria Sharapova is already a Grandslam Champion, we saw the Best of Martina Hingis before she was even 18 years.
I really see two reasons why this Mania (I am afraid i had to use that word, but the media Says there is a Sania Mania sweeping the country)
- Indian Media likes to make heroes out of nothing and dump them out whenever they get the first chance
- Indian Media needs some alternative to CRICKET - yes you heard it correct Cricket
Lets put things in perspective. I have seen some articles in major newspapers (I use the same sentence - because i cannot swallow it), that One day Sania will take up the Pre-eminent position in the Country of either Cricket or atleast Indian Cricketers when she becomes the top tenner. People are comparing Cricket and Tennis, DAMM IT Tennis is a Professional sport, where a player is not responsible to the nation. Imagine people throwing stones @ Sania House in Hyderabad when she loses a match badly to some opponent, in a Major tournament. (Remember the peltering Ganguly and Co received when they lost the world cup match badly to Australia in 2003) Will she be ready for that?. To me a better tennis player to come out of India in my memory still is Leander Paes. Remember his Davis Cup Heroics and the Bronze medal @ the Atlanta Olympics. Let us wait till wait till what sania achieves for us in Fed Cup. As I am interested in what she does to the country in Sport, rather what she does for herself in sport. If you take professional game alone, where was the media when Leander and Mahesh reached finals all four Grand Slams in 1998 and won two of them. Is it not a better achievement then what Sania has done recently…
I happened to see the game that Sania played against Jelena Jankovic in Dubai Open expecting her to reach the semi-finals there and THE match against Maria Sharapova. Yes she has a very good forehand as well as backend.. in her coach’s words “ONE OF THE BEST IN WOMENS GAME“, but what about those unforced errors (directly proportional to the winners), double faults and her second serve (one of the weakest i have seen in a long time in womens tennis, Maria was maurading her second serve). As on date and may be in future Sania can reach 3rd/4th round and may be reach finals/win in some tier 3/4 tournaments, but thats it, dont expect magic from her, because she needs to improve a lot
- She has to reduce those unforced errors by a greater extent
- Get a strong second serve.
I expect her to win more matches than what does now, but then again I will wait for her to prove that she can play for India too like what Leander Paes did or else Media has Narain Karthikeyan to throw out @ Indian Cricket, who may drive for a better team and a car in near future and who really is more talented than Sania is… according to me…
