Sania Mirza - General Discussion of tennis matters

[puneets]

P.S. This site opened six pop-ups

Don't tell me that you still use IE.

[Michael Joseph]

Sania please recover soon. Hope you get better. Sunfeast Open will not be the same without you. The organizers will lose a lot of money. Everyone please remember her in your prayers.

HOPE SHE RECOVERS IN THE NEXT FEW DAYS BEFORE THE SUNFEAST OPEN.

[akmohanty]

i just hope, wish and pray that she recovers and plays. what is perhaps more worrying in this news is that she says the wrist injury aggravates when she plays on hard courts - where she plays the best 

[PKBasu]

Sania MUST be more careful regarding the number of tournaments she plays. The relentless pressure (including from some members of this forum) is totally out of place. The key is to stay healthy, and look after the body (wrists, ankles, knees, they're all crucial for god's sake!). Rankings must be a distant second to health.

[prasen9]

Fans want to see the players play and so do the players themselves.  Sania has shown that she does not succumb to pressure because the pressure must have been the most at Sunfeast.  I hope the fat paycheck at Korea does not influence her thinking unless she is really fit.  It is very important to heal the niggling injuries.  I would rather that she travel to Canada to play one more week than come back one week early.  Also, Sania has the tendency to play several weeks of hardcourt continuously ignoring small injuries.  Perhaps she makes the best decisions and they are correct.  However, her team needs to be cautious because the players tend to think that their small injury will be fine.  I have played with a sprained ankle and now I am having trouble driving even after three months.  Got to get it rested.  So even small injuries linger if we do not get them to heal.  I actually do not follow my own advice even though no cash or glory is riding in my recreational games (except perhaps the diameter of my pot-belly) but hopefully Sania is saner (and I posit that the pressure on her is actually lower because she does not have to think of her pot-belly growing exponentially ).

[Atithee]

(and I posit that the pressure on her is actually lower because she does not have to think of her pot-belly growing exponentially ).

Don't worry - she is a "no think" practitioner, thanks to Prof. Jay 

[iShUuU]

Miles to go, but I need a break for now
sania has written in today's times of india

INJURIES are the bane of professional sportsmen and very much a part of our lives. The year has been a tough one for me although the results on the courts have been fruitful.
I started the year ranked 66th in the world and with the critics ready to write me off. A good showing in the Hopman Cup in Perth started me off on the right track and a couple of good tournaments later, I was looking towards inching back to my best ever world ranking when I was struck by a career-threatening knee injury in my second round match at Doha.
A surgery followed and then a few months of painful and rigorous physical training to get back on court. It was a depressing time for me when I could not get onto the tennis courts
I wobbled onto the court in May, only to find that I had little confidence in my movements on court although I was delighted that I still had my sense of timing with the ball despite the long break. I struggled through the singles matches
on the European clay and then grass court season, winning a few but found myself doing remarkably well in doubles, where my unsure foot movements did not hamper me as much as they did in singles. By Wimbledon, I was beginning to find my feet again and the confidence to face the best in the business was slowly but surely returning.
I had a phenomenal hard court season in USA. On my favourite surface, I went from strength-tostrength, notching up significant wins over the likes of Martina Hingis, Patty Schnyder, Tatiana Golovin and Shahar Peer to take my ranking in singles to a careerhigh of 27. I was also ranked at my best of 18 in doubles, winning 4 titles during the year and recording wins over the no. 1 and No. 2 doubles teams of the world within a span of a week — and that, too, while playing with 2 different partners! It was my first entry into the quarter-finals of a Grand Slam at the US Open in doubles as well as in mixed but towards the end of the US Open series, my wrist began to hurt, forcing me to take another break. 
Four weeks later, I was back on court in Tokyo to start the last leg of the year, with few points to defend and a lot to gain from a few wins. The wrist felt better and I began the tour in pretty good form, reaching the last 8 stage in the Japan Open. Then while playing Flavia Pennetta in the quarterfinal, I hyper-extended my stomach muscle.
I limped through the two Tier I tournaments without achieving much and with the injury threatening to get worse, I decided I have had enough. I still have miles to go but for now, my journey needs to be put on hold. I’m looking forward immensely to a break to rejuvenate me and to recuperate for the next season.

[S_K_S]

Possibly ghost written as it has the flavour of journalistic sound-bites and sounds like someone who has gone through the calendar and made observations along the way. Can't say there is anything new in the whole article.

[Atithee]

Possibly ghost written as it has the flavour of journalistic sound-bites and sounds like someone who has gone through the calendar and made observations along the way. Can't say there is anything new in the whole article.

The word pablum comes to mind.

[jayakris]

Yeah, if it was ghost-written, she needs to fire the ghost for coming up with such pablum

Jay

[BSharma]

Miles to go, but I need a break for now
sania has written in today's times of india

INJURIES are the bane of professional sportsmen and very much a part of our lives. ...

Unless there is proof to the contrary, I will give the benefit of doubt to Sania and believe that she has written all her articles in the press. 

Sania rarely talks about her injuries at press conferences after her defeats and this article is so unlike her comments at press conferences and is loaded with reports about her injuries.  Most of the injuries are old news except for her latest abdominal muscle injury.

In case Sania uses ghost writers, I would suggest to her to use the services of Jay who will write a balanced report.  In return, she could give one of her old tennis rackets to Jay and could give him a tennis lesson or two when she visits Los Angeles area in 2008. 

[Michael Joseph]

Hi everyone. Can anyone shed light on gold and silver exempt lists that come out every year. How are the players chosen??? Does it apply to tournaments the year round or specific tournaments? Heard Sania has been nominated for silver exempt? What does that mean?

Hope she comes back better next season. All the best. Work hard.

[jaydeep]

Can anyone shed light on gold and silver exempt lists that come out every year. How are the players chosen??? Does it apply to tournaments the year round or specific tournaments?

Composition of Silver Exempt List -

The Silver Exempt List shall consist of 32 players comprised as follows -
a. Silver Exempt players 21-30. The ten (10) highest ranked singles players as of the WTA Tour Rankings produced immediately following the previous year’s US Open (including Special Rankings), who have not been selected to the Gold Exempt List; and
b. Silver Exempt players 31-50. The 20 highest ranked singles players as of the WTA Tour Rankings produced immediately following the previous year’s US Open (including Special Rankings), who have not been selected to the Gold Exempt List or Silver Exempt 21-30 list; and
c. Two (2) Wild Card players to be chosen by the Worldwide Tournament Directors, provided the players were among the top 100 ranked singles players as of the WTA Tour singles Rankings produced immediately following the previous year’s US Open.

[sameerph]

Sania's interview from Times of India e-paper :-

SANIA OUT TO ENJOY THE BREAK



M Ratnakar | TNN



An abrupt injury-forced pullout from the final leg of the season is proving to be a blessing in disguise for Sania Mirza. After returning home in mid-October after a stomach muscle injury, the 20-year-old said she is enjoying life away from the tennis courts.
  “It’s after two years that I got a long break and I want to enjoy every bit of it. I am planning to make good use of this unexpected holiday break. I don’t want to think about tennis now. I am very tired after all the hard work,’’ Sania told ToI on Wednesday.
  The Hyderabadi described her comeback after a career threatening injury earlier this year as one of the best moments in her life. “Doing very well after the career-threatening knee injury in February was great. I feel it was one of the best moments in my life. I would’ve agreed if one had said that it would be an achievement for me to finish in the top 50 after that injury. But breaking into the top 30 and finishing the season at 32, I feel is a great achievement,’’ she said.
  “I missed three months of good tennis action due to the knee surgery and wrist injury. It was an eventful year for me. I was low at times and came back strongly answering critics who had written me off. It hurts to read something bad about you. But people’s memory is short and they forget achievements soon. They said I can never do well against retrievers. But I beat three of the best retrievers in Martina Hingis, Tatiana Golovin and Patty Schynder in a row,’’ Sania, the lone Indian to win a WTA title said.
  She, however, made light of her niggles. “Every player is injury prone. At times players are more injured or less injured but no one is injury free,’’ she observed.
  After a successful sojourn under the guidance of coach Gabriel Urpi, Sania is now without a coach and has no plans to hire one immediately. “I don’t have a coach now and I am not thinking about it. It was a fruitful partnership with Urpi. He is a good coach and taught me how to balance my game. Before working with him I was only an attacking player but he added defence to my repertoire,’’ she said.
  The tennis ace strongly believes that she can easily handle the limelight. “When I was 17, I was a surprise package. Even then I handled pressure which a 60-year-old could have found very difficult to do,’’ said Sania, who will return to action in the Hopman Cup on December 30.

She still seems unsure about hiring a top notch coach.

[Atithee]

Sania's interview from Times of India e-paper :-

SANIA OUT TO ENJOY THE BREAK




   “I missed three months of good tennis action due to the knee surgery and wrist injury. It was an eventful year for me. I was low at times and came back strongly answering critics who had written me off. It hurts to read something bad about you. But people’s memory is short and they forget achievements soon. They said I can never do well against retrievers. But I beat three of the best retrievers in Martina Hingis, Tatiana Golovin and Patty Schynder in a row,’’ Sania, the lone Indian to win a WTA title said.
   

Hmmm!  This seems a quote straight from our forum.  I don't recall reading this anywhere else.