Australian Open Thread

Sandeep · Post by **Sandeep** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 1:52 am

Nate, you screw up things big time

. That was PKBasu's quote and not mine. I am redirecting the thanks to him

Nate · Post by **Nate** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 5:25 pm

sorry about that PKB. But screwups like that can happen when you are browsing the forum in a much reduced size window on your desktop at work to not feed any snoopy co-workers

shaili · Post by **shaili** » Sun Jul 31, 2005 4:30 am

may i know why you guys are discussing this topic in the AO thread???

Post by **jayakris** » Sun Jul 31, 2005 5:01 am

I believe Gilbert made the comment predicting top-50 at the AO ? ... right?

So PKB waited for a few months and came back here to remind us.

Jay

PKBasu · Post by **PKBasu** » Mon Aug 01, 2005 5:57 am

Yes, that is the reason. Brad Gilbert saw Sania walking around soon after her match with Serena, expressed his admiration for the way she had played and reportedly even offered to coach her. He told reporters soon afterwards that she would be top-50 before the end of the year; it seems such an obvious thing now, but she was ranked #134 then and many of us were considered over-optimistic for predicting such things for her...

Also helps us gain some perspective on how quickly Sania has progressed up the rankings. A year ago, she was still playing (and dominating) Futures ($10K tournaments), then in August 2004 she began to play Challengers (and dominated them). Now she is a regular on the WTA tour, and the Indian press expects her to win every match!

Post by **jayakris** » Mon Aug 01, 2005 6:06 am

Yeah, she was expected to play challengers for a minimum of a year and move closer to top-150 and all that (which was just a year back when she was somewhere near 300 or so). She hardly played 4 months on the challenger circuit and then did her thing at the Australian. Remember that when Gilbert said that, SM had not won the Hyderbad Open etc, yet -- it was just based on 2 matches at the AO! ... That was indeed a bold prediction.

Jay

PKBasu · Post by **PKBasu** » Mon Aug 01, 2005 6:18 am

The really bold quote soon after the AO was actually from Sania herself. She said she wanted to win the Hyderabad Open. Many thought she was impetuous to do so...
I think Sania has a pretty shrewd appreciation of her own abilities (and limitations).

Post by **jayakris** » Mon Aug 01, 2005 6:24 am

.. I always noticed that she rarely bragged though .. Generally if she talked the talk, she walked the walk too.

Jay

Sandeep · Post by **Sandeep** » Mon Aug 01, 2005 6:29 am

I agree. Sania, always talked about things which she is capable of.

PKBasu · Post by **PKBasu** » Thu Jan 06, 2022 7:08 am

This is a 17 year old thread, NOT the one to be discussing THIS YEAR's Australian Open!!

jaydeep · Post by **jaydeep** » Thu Jan 06, 2022 9:53 am

Moving Prasen(jit)'s post to our current AO thread ...

Omkara · Post by **Omkara** » Fri Jan 07, 2022 8:21 am

Got me worried. How come I missed 38 pages of discussion of this year's AO. Then why this Brad Gilbert worried about Sania's doubles rank? Then I realised

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