This is a forum where users can follow various tournaments that have Indian participation or are held in India. GrandSlams and Davis Cup should also be discussed here.
1. Fernandez Clarisa (ARG) vs Morigami Akiko (JPN)
Vakulenko Julia (UKR) vs Vanc Adreea (ROM)
Voracova Renata (CZE) vs Schaul Claudine(LUX)
8. Talaja Silvija(CRO) vs Prakusya Wynne (INA)
3. Likhovtseva Elena (RUS) vs Obziler Tzipora (ISR)
Serra Zanetti Anotella (ITA) vs Evegenia Koulikovskaya (RUS)
Serra Zanetti Adriana(ITA) vs Obata Saori(JPN)
5. Tulyaganova Iroda (UZB) vs Marosi Katalin(HUN)
6. Torrens Valero Christina(ESP)vs Jeon Mi-Ra(KOR)
Pennetta Flavia (ITA) vs Sucha Martina (SVK)
WC Mirza Sania (IND) vs Dominikovic Evie(AUS)
4. Pierce Mary (FRA) vs Q Jie Zheng(CHN)
7. Widjaja Angelique (INA) vs Kostanic Jelena(CRO)
Rodionova Anastassia vs Q Maria Kirilenko(RUS)
Poutchek Tatiana (BLR) vs Q Manisha Malhotra(IND)
2. Tanasugarn Tamarine (THA) vs Q Yulia Beygelzimer(UKR)
The only problem I see is that all the Indian players if any of them make it to the main draw will be in the bottom half and so no dream all Indian final. (As if that was possible to begin with )
Last edited by Dhruv on Thu Feb 06, 2003 6:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
The sad thing is that the injury and withdrawl came after the qualies started, and so they could not even use the wildcard they had for Chanda on somebody else.
Now there are 5 qualifier spots. One lucky loser will also make it in from the qualies, according to PTI.
This is a real injury and withdrawal. If it was Chennai Open, I would have probably suspected foul play and said they might have been pulling a fast one
I don't know what happens to Manisha's double pairing. She must be heartbroken now.
"The other players who opted out from the tournament include Yoon Jeong Cho (Korea), Jana Kandar (Germany) and Maria Elena Camerine (Italy) while the new entrants are Akiko Moringami (Japan) and Tzipora Obzilar of Israel."
"The seeds are: 1 Clarisa Fernandez (Arg), 2 Tamarine Tanasugarn (Thailand), 3 Elena Likhovtseva (Russia), 4 Mary Pierce (France), 5 Iroda Tulyaganova (Uzbek), 6 Christina Valero Torens (Spain), 7 Angelique Widjaja (Indonesia), 8 Silvija Talaja (Croatia)."
The draw updated with comments. The website desginers of the tournament have been playing with my mind. I've had to change/adapt the posted draw 3 times today. Now I have the excel file so things should be fine.
I think the UNI report I saw earlier was wrong. No extra qualifier spot. The withdrawal came after the qualifying draw was made, but BEFORE the matches started, so they simply moved Andrea Vanc up from the qualies to the main draw.
Likhovtseva E. RUS/Tulyagnova I. UZB vs Morigami A. JPN/Obata S. JPN
WC Mirza S. IND/Pierce M. FRA vs WC Chakravarti R. IND/Jayalakshmi J.Sai IND
Kostanic J. CRO/Marosi K. HUN vs Yan Zi CHN/Zheng Jio CHN
Fernandes C. ARG/Venio Kabchi M. VEN vs Pennetta F. ITA/Vanc A. ROM
Grant K. RSA/Malhotra M. IND vs Beygelzimer Y. UKR/Rodionova A. RUS
Talaja S. CRO/Voracova R. CZE vs Koulikovskaya E. RUS/Poutchek T. BLR
Serra Zanetti A. and Antonella ITA vs Li Ting CHN/Sun Tian Tian CHN
Musgrave T. AUS/Tanasugarn T. THA vs Prakusya W. INA/Widjaja A. INA
The website wrote:Playing with Sania seems to have put Pierce in the right frame of mind, in her comeback Quest. "Sania is a great girl, she has great energy, she hits the ball harder than I do and well I had a lot of fun', said Pierce.
Sania on the other hand looked star struck. "It is the best thing (playing alongside Pierce) that has happened in my whole career. It's like a dream come true", said the excited bubbling with enthusiasm teenager.
If Sania hits the ball harder than Mary and she is still 15 or 16 there is really hope for Indian womens tennis. Maybe Mary is being kind but if Sania does hit the ball that hard and hopefully accurately as well(one thing to hit it hard another to keep it in court and where your opponent can't get to it) maybe she can make it in the big leagues when she moves out of the juniors later this year.
Tommorow's schedule Centre Court
15:30 Elena Likhovtseva vs Tzipora Obziler
Clarisa Fernandez vs Akiko Morigami
Jie Zheng vs Mary Pierce( Not before 18:00) Sania Mirza vs Evie Dominikovic(94,AUS)( Not before19:30 )
Court 3
15:30 Flavia Pannetta vs Martina Sucha
Renata Voracova vs Claudine Schaul( Not before 16:30 )
Yulia Beygelzimer vs Tamarine Tanasugarn (Not before18:00 )
Talaja/Voracova-Koulikovskaya/Poutchek( Not before 19:30 )
Court 4
15:30 Maria Kirilenko vs Anastassia Rodionova Tatiana Poutchek(87,BLR) vs Manisha Malhotra ( Not before 16:30 )
Katalin Marosi vs Iroda Tulyaganova ( Not before 18:00 )
Adriana Serra Zanetti vs Saori Obata( Not before 19:30 )
All times in IST. Relatively good break for Manisha she could have had a much tougher matchup.
Manisha was up 3-1 at one stage the third set. I guess she couldn't hold on.
Great performance anyway by Manisha here. She won a couple of good matches in the qualifiers and more than held her own against the much higher ranked Poutchek.
This performance gives me hope for Sania later today. Maybe she can pull off an upset. I just hope though that the pressure isn't too much for her.
Go Sania. Both are still alive in doubles but for once I'd like to see Indian players doing well in singles rather than just doubles specialists. yes LP/MB are great but it would much better if we had World #1 or even a top #20 singles player.
Sania lost quite tamely in the end after promising quite a lot, taking the first set of Evie. Unlike Manisha, who lost the first 5 games of the match and then made a comeback nearly winning the match in the third, Sania started out very strongly but just couldn't sustain the pace and quality for the three sets. Hopefully this consistency which is required for to break into the top 100-150 will come with time and good coaching. On the other hand their were a lot of other upsets at the Indian Open with Elena Likhovtseva and Clarissa both losing and Mary Pierce coming close to losing.
A news story in the Hindu which I think is obviously wrong http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/holnus/07042208.htm
This would never happen and I will be shocked if it did. I think this made it by the Hindu editors/sports writers somehow. Mary Pierce and Clarissa Fernandez have better things tourneys to play than a $10K ITF futures event. Anyway if they do show up due to some miracle, that will just suck for the local Indian talent who would like to pick up a couple of points for the main tour. Anyway as they aren't going to show and the story is obviously flawed, it is a moot point.[/quote]
Well, Sania gets a total of 1 point for her efforts whereas Manisha has accumulated 8 and Isha has 4.
One of the reasons why I am not a big fan of WC in the WTA is that you get 1 point if you lose first round unlike the ATP where you atleast get a few points for showing up. I guess the WTA system is better because it only rewards you if you win, but when we want WC's I think ATP WC's are better spent on local talent(they'll get points even if they lose but pretty much zero if they don't make the MD) and WTA WC's on high profile players unless local stars have a 50-50 chance of winning a match. The WTA does give points for making it through the qualies. Just MHO and I'm sure a lot of people out there will disagree and point to the upsets that we saw today but I still think giving the WC's to who Globosport did was the right idea even though maybe neither Elena or Chansa were big name draws.
WTAINDIANOPEN SITE wrote:India?s Sania Mirza started with a lot of promise demolishing Australian Evie Dominikovic 6-2 in the first set. But the experienced Aussie had other plans and began dictating the pace of the match to totally put Sania off balance and the Indian teenager succumbed with little resistance to lose the second and third sets 1-6, 2-6.
The other Indian in the main draw Manisha Malhotra indulged in a slugfest against Tatiana Poutchek of Belarus before losing in a hard fought three setter. The duo indulged in long rallies with the crowd prefering to root for the Indian rather than watch Mary Pierce in action on centre court. The second set was the longest set where in one game deuce being called out for a record 10 times in this tournament.
Manisha however was hindered by cramps, which was very apparent and the Indian No 1 put up a brave front with the crowd egging on to the very end before the Indian bowed out 2-6, 6-4, 5-7.
Check out the website it has some nice stuff and now some photos are up as well. It is www.wtaindianopen.com .
Generally I too think like you say, but just this time I am OK with Sania playing the first round straight - only because she seems soooo different in terms of her drive and seriousness. She may actually have gained more by just taking a set off a top-100 player today than to get more points from qualies. Had she fallen in the qualies, it may have made her think a tad bit lower about her plans, but I think today's loss probably made her continue to think big. That is OK, till everyone feels (say in 3-4 months) that we need to go back to plan B and get her to climb up again a bit in the juniors.
I have some more thoughts that I will put in the other thread with the rediff article, later today.
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I've had to change/adapt the posted draw 3 times today. Now I have the excel file so things should be fine. 
whereas Manisha has accumulated 8 and Isha has 4.