Sanaa Bhambri thread... (Joins the forum! Hooray!)

[Sathya]

Hi Sanaa, Nice to have you here. Welcome ! I am sure you will have lot of fun reading all our appreciations / criticisms and expert analysis by many people here in this forum. All the Best for your matches ahead. You will do well as you are talented.

[Sandeep]

Welcome to the forum Sanaa.

[PKBasu]

Welcome to the forum, Sanaa!! It's terrific to have you on board. Sania, by the way, joined the forum a few months before she began her terrific run from around 200 in the rankings to the top-50 in less than a year. After your great performance in Calcutta, we are hopeful you will follow in Sania's steps...we haven't forgotten that you and Sania made the French Open doubles semifinal several years ago!

[PKBasu]

Congratulations to Sanaa for winning her first professional title, with a series of terrific wins over the cream of Indian women's tennis (minus Sania, the Uberois and Ankita). Sanaa beat Tara Iyer in the QF, Megha Vakaria in the SF and the ever-green Rushmi Chakravarthy (usually almost unassailable in India against anyone but Sania) in the final.

Sanaa beat Brenda Schultz, a former Wimbledon and US Open quarter-finalist and the woman with the fastest serve in WTA history (the record having been regained by her this year), in the first round of qualifying at the Sunfeast Open in Calcutta. It was a terrific match that went to the limit, but Sanaa was able to pull out a close third-set tie-breaker. Then she beat another seed in the final qualifying round to make the main draw.

Following those heroics, this week's excellent run is further proof of her development. Now Sanaa needs to chalk out a full program of overseas play (interspersed with tournaments in India along the way) to take the next step. Her goal should be to be in the top-200 within the next six months.

[PKBasu]

Sanaa just turned 18 in July this year, so she has time on her side. I think she should have played a well-planned schedule of junior tournaments this year to generate some positive news flow and look for sponsorships. But that didn't happen, and its time to move on. Her results in India suggest she has terrific potential, but the only way to move forward is to play a good schedule of overseas tournaments -- planning that properly to ensure that she first focuses on the Futures-type tournaments first (one of which she won in India this week), then make the transition to the $25K tournaments.

[jayakris]

.. Yeah, not at all late for Sanaa (man, isn;t it hard to believe that this girl is still only 18??) ..

First thing she should do is, to spend the next 6 weeks doing nothing but strength training.  Hard training.  Not that she is weak or anything, but EVERY damn Indian player needs better training work.  Just get into the gym and drop everything else, Sanaa -- you will be surprised how good you are with all the talent you have, if you add pieces to the puzzle that you can put in by yourself.  The talent you have cannot be taught or coached (and we know it isn't, in the case of most Indian players) .. But there are things that can be done to fully make use fo God-given abilities.  Just don't allow anything you can do to add to it, be left to chance.  No stones unturned.  Go for it.

.. Meanwhile, do not look back; do not feel that you haven't got the support you should have; and do not complain about anything, because it will all help only to disctract you from your work.  Your results will speak loudly in the end.  Again, GO FOR IT, SANAA!!!

Jay

[jayakris]

Sanaa is listed fo next week's $10K in Dubai .. 

(Don't know why Ankita isn't... Ankita had withdrawn from next week's HoChiMinh City challenger where she would have probably squeezed into the main draw.  She hardly plays anywhere these days; wonder why)

Anyway, go Sanaa, next week at Dubai!

Jay

[sameerph]

Ankita was injured during Mumbai challanger. Perhaps she has not yet fully recovered from that injury.

[jayakris]

Yeah, I fotgot that.  Hope rshe recovers fast - or we will need to put in Sanaa or Rushmi in the FedCup team.

Jay

[sanaa]

dear members!!
wishing u all a very happy new year..
me and ankita mite be playin d 25k in clearwater,florida on d 16th feb. so was wondering if u could help us with d accomodation and how far is it from tampa?
thanks regards sanaa

[PKBasu]

Nice to hear from you, Sanaa. I'm sure some of our forum members in Florida can swing into action on this, although we have many more members in NY, California and Texas...

If you ever plan to play in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, please let me know via a personal message through this forum.

[amr090]

i believe we did have a couple of members in florida hopefully they are stil reading the forum and can help out...

[gbelday]

Mapquest shows that Clearwater is about 25 miles from Tampa.  Any members in and around Tampa should be able to help. 

[BSharma]

me and ankita mite be playin d 25k in clearwater,florida on d 16th feb. so was wondering if u could help us with d accomodation and how far is it from tampa?
thanks regards sanaa

Welcome to Sports-India.

I have been to Tampa, Clearwater and St. Petersburg, Florida although I live far away from that beautiful area.  Unfortunately, I do not know anyone in Clearwater or nearby.  Clearwater, Tampa and St. Petersburg are cities that are next to each other and Clearwtare is due west of Tampa.

I have provided a link about transportation from Tampa airport to Clearwater.
Transportation between Tampa airport and Clearwater

[Desi]

I am living in Chicago. If any Tennis player from India,need any support in Chicago  area, I am available.
We may need to create such Database, so its available for any player to use.