Sania Mirza Tournaments 2009 ...

A new subforum created to discuss Sania Mirza. As a lot of the other tennis player threads were getting overloaded, thus a new forum to discuss Sania Mirza

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Re: Sania Mirza Tournaments 2009 ...

Post by jayakris »

Match Progress -- Osaka WTA -- [SF] Sania Mirza l. (4) Francesca Schiavone, 26 16

First set: Sania serving a high percentage of first serves, but not picking up enough pts off them though. Broken in game 2 at 30-40 after saving one BP. Schiavone not giving Sania much on her own serve (only 4 pts in her first three service games for SM) .. Sania holds twice .. 2-4 .. Another hold at 15 by Schiavaone, who must be playing quite well. 2-5 and SM to serve. Now, at 30-30, after winning 6 of the previous 7 second serve points, which is unusually good for Sania, she double-faults. When the crunch comes, things desert her. Set point - and FS takes a point off SM's first serve. Broken again; set gone. Sania has lost a much higher number of point off her own first serve today .. Perhaps an indication that her other bread-and-butter shots are not working as well? That would be trouble.

Second set: Nice work by Sania in the game 2, winning it at love after an ace, 2 first serve pts and a second serve point. Again, her second serve winning percentage continues to be impressive (7 of 10). Why is she losing then ??? .. Sometimes it is not all the serve, despite what some in this forum say .. 1-1 .. Unable to do much on FS's service games .. 1-2 .. SM goes through three deuces and drops serve on the first BP. Broken in game 3. Continues to lose more points on the first serve than she normally does - only 13 off 24 (better on second, at 8 of 14) .. Looks like she has nothing left today. 1-3 down. 1-4 after another easy hold by FS. SM won a point off the second serve but double faults for double BP .. Broken in game 6 .. FS holds easily ..

Sania only got 11 points off FS' eight service games today, and did not even come close to a BP .. That indicates that serve was not her problem today. Either Schiavone was in a zone today with her shots, or Sania was not able to hit her own winners at all. I suspect the latter, which happens to her late into tournaments these days. Anyway, she still had a nice run and picked up some points to get back inside top-60.

Jay
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Re: Sania Mirza Tournaments 2009 ...

Post by MithuChelu »

Jay,who can predict Sania..............not even herself.

Down 2-6 & 1-4................the match is over..............Arguably one of the most inconsistent sports person playing for India after our current hockey captain Sandeep singh.

Highly Inconsistent..........

MC
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Re: Sania Mirza Tournaments 2009 ...

Post by MithuChelu »

Match over 6-2,6-1 to Shiovane

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Re: Sania Mirza Tournaments 2009 ...

Post by jayakris »

Highly Inconsistent..........MC
It would seem so, but seeing that she could only pick up 11 points from 8 service games from Schiavone, I think Sania's shots were just not there. If she can't return well and hit her forehand, she can't win. I think that wrist was not at all cooperating today.

Curious stats in this match though. Sania actually won 9 points off her 15 second serves that went in (she had 2 DFs). Probably the highest second serve winning percentage I have ever seen from SM, and a higher percentage at 60% than the 13 of 26 she had on first serve (50%) .. It has to be that she was trying to hang in there defensively on her second serve and forcing FS to make some mistakes, going for too much. She does have much better defensive tennis with her than she did 2 or 3 years back. I have seen her fall back to it to live longer when she can't hit her power shots, but she can't win with that though.

Anyway, that is the only explanation I can think of ... Again, it would indicate that her bread-and-butter winners were not there.

Jay
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Re: Sania Mirza Tournaments 2009 ...

Post by PKBasu »

Sad, tame loss today. Considering that this was her last tournament of the year (with that decision brought on by renewed pain in the wrist, her main sporting tool), this has been a satisfactory tournament. She pulled off a huge win over the second-seed yesterday, beat the fifth seed in a tough 3-setter in R1, before today's tame loss (to a much higher-ranked player who has beaten her in both their previous matches). MC's claim that this shows inconsistency is absurd.

Perhaps it shows that she ran out of stamina (given her continuing injury -- but even here she did better than Bartoli and Czink, she didn't concede but continued to fight through injury). But inconsistency? What she showed this week is real consistency, beating two higher-ranked players against whom she has a winning career record, and then losing to one she has never beaten before...
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Re: Sania Mirza Tournaments 2009 ...

Post by jayakris »

Great point, PKB. Actually, had Sania retired in several matches she lost over the last 2-3 years, she probably would not take as much criticism as she is getting. She *never* retires from a match. Something for which I deeply respect her. There are so many players who retire so close to losing, just to make a point that they were not 100%. Sania on the other hand will hang in there till the every end, and would usually not talk about her physical problems (or if she is cornered to mention it by the scribes, she would always add "but most WTA players are always dinged up; so I can't complain" - knowing very well that in her case, the ailment is probably taking out her singularly superlative weapon - the bazaooka forehand, and her case is quite different than most players' dings).

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Re: Sania Mirza Tournaments 2009 ...

Post by Omkara »

Here MC suggests Sania is the most inconsistent player. Somebody in Prakash Amritraj's forum said P$ is the most inconsistent player. Well the word "Most" can be used only once as it is superlative in nature. Hence MC and the other guy should start a new forum and debate or fight it out and decide who the MOST inconsistant player is.

Rest of us can enjoy a good run by Sania, suggesting she is still there.

May 2010 be the year!
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Re: Sania Mirza Tournaments 2009 ...

Post by jayakris »

Well, Mithu said, "Arguably one of the most inconsistent sports person playing for India" .. So he did phrase it doubly carefully. Prakash also can be ONE OF THE most inconsistent players along with Sania, and anyway, Prakash does not PLAY FOR INDIA :) ... So, you can't fault MC.

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Re: Sania Mirza Tournaments 2009 ...

Post by Atithee »

Jay,

Has MC given you a research grant recently? You have done a 180 after almost beheading the guy only a few days ago. :p

Just kidding. Seriously, thanks for not censoring and censuring MC.
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Re: Sania Mirza Tournaments 2009 ...

Post by MithuChelu »

Jay & Atithee,

Actually there is quite a long list of inconsistent sports person's in this country........might require a long page to list down.My list will contain most of the hockey players in the present team and the no.1 spot will go to Sandeep Singh.This guy to me is extremely talented but highly vulnerable because of poor mental ability to think under tight situation.One moment he is world classand the very next he is school boy stuff.

In fact most of these INCONSISTENT players are rated like that by the media in India because of their lack of mental fitness.Several times media have quoted Sania's poor mental strength and even indirectly have asked her to take a leaf out of LEANDER PAES & BAICHUNG BHUTIA for their tremendous mental strength even after crossing 30.

A player like her at that age can't even imagine of beating Geoffrey Boycott's Mother for sure.May be I am wrong.......even now Geoffrey's Mother will break her serve without sweating.

You never know..................

Any way thanks for making some of my friends understand my statement.

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Re: Sania Mirza Tournaments 2009 ...

Post by jayakris »

Mental strength is the reason why Sania developed accuracy on her singularly superlative forehand, and reached top-30. Lack of mental strength was THE reason why Leander did not reach top-50 or even top-25 that he had the ability for. There are many facets to mental strength. I will write more later. Gotta go to sleep. 5 am. Been working all night, and I have to catch a little sleep and get up all ready to see the Longhorns go after the Land thiefs .... Jay
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Re: Sania Mirza Tournaments 2009 ...

Post by prasen9 »

jayakris wrote:Well, Mithu said, "Arguably one of the most inconsistent sports person playing for India" .. So he did phrase it doubly carefully. Prakash also can be ONE OF THE most inconsistent players along with Sania, and anyway, Prakash does not PLAY FOR INDIA :) ... So, you can't fault MC.

Jay
Sania may perhaps be the most inconsistent sports person playing for India because she plays more at the highest level and because she wins several games upsetting top-ranked players. Most of the other players are consistent in that they lose consistently with the exception of Somdev and Yuki. The most consistent player would be who always loses at the first round because we can never have the other extreme - one who always wins all matches. So, I would rather take an inconsistent player than a consistent loser.

There is another reason. Sania's YTD record is: 26-17. Poojashree's record is 33-10. Ankita's is 7-4. Isha is 13-8. Rushmi is 16-7. So, Sania is more inconsistent than the others. Why? Obviously, because Sania plays a tougher schedule whereas the others' numbers are padded by beating cupcakes in the first rounds of futures.
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Re: Sania Mirza Tournaments 2009 ...

Post by prasen9 »

MithuChelu wrote:Sania's poor mental strength and even indirectly have asked her to take a leaf out of LEANDER PAES & BAICHUNG BHUTIA for their tremendous mental strength even after crossing 30.
Mithu, Leander was mentally strong only when he played for India and not when he played individually in singles. Maybe Somdev is a better example when we are talking about mental strength day in and day out.
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Re: Sania Mirza Tournaments 2009 ...

Post by jai_in_canada »

Great show by Sania to end her year on the tour on a high. She has really focused on her tennis despite the distractions of her engagement. Played the Challenger circuit. Never quit - even when she was down 6-0, 5-0. So new respect. I hope she still stays with her decision to take the rest of the year off of competitive tennis.
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Re: Sania Mirza Tournaments 2009 ...

Post by PKBasu »

Yes, that is certainly the end of the season for her (her Facebook page says, "..season done..goodbye 2009"). So she will get an extra-long break of 2.5 months at the end of another long and exhausting season in which she has fought through injury and recurrent wrist pain, and come pretty close to #50 in the rankings with a fine tournament at the end of the year.

She remains the only Indian tennis player ranked in the top-100 in singles (having achieved that now for the fifth consecutive year since her breakthrough at the AO in 2005). Only two other Indians have achieved that feat (5 successive years in the top-50) in the Open era -- Vijay Amritraj and Ramesh Krishnan. (Anand Amritraj and Leander Paes were in the top-100 for about 3 years each, and Sashi Menon for 2 -- but not consistently so for any of them). In fact, Sania Mirza is the only Indian tennis player who has been ranked in the top-100 in the world so far in the 21st century (Leander was last ranked inside top-100 in May 1999).
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