$1.3M Tier-I WTA - Acura Classic, La Costa (San Diego)

[PKBasu]

Nice, detailed report in The Australian. The Aussies really know how to cover sports.

[jaydeep]

Another superb report by Jay on one of the best match of Sania ... I like Jay's comments about how Sania adjusting her games as per player ... And trying new things with these top 10 players ... Yeah sometime that can be backfire, but importantly Sania's hardwork is showing in these all new changes thats heartening ... Lovely to see her improvement in game and importantly she is managing to use that on court.

Sania's scoreline against top 10 player was amazing ... Not finding any suitable comments for that .... Hoping she would took care of Akiko in PQF.

Jaydeep.

[jayakris]

Sania's scoreline against top 10 player was amazing ... Not finding any suitable comments for that

The word is "humanoidisticasswhippicacious", as I wrote in my daily notes

Jay

[jaydeep]

The word is "humanoidisticasswhippicacious", as I wrote in my daily notes

Though I m not able to pronounce it ...

Jaydeep.

[jayakris]

Can you comment of Petrova's "heavily strapped right forearm", and if it affected her from playing her natural game?

I don't really know, and that's why I did not comment on that. I don't know well enough how good her natural game is. Her shots seemed to have good enough power and the radar measured some serves from her at 112 to 115 mph, which means she was not having problems with power ... Beyond that I don't know. Her problem did not seem to be because of forehand .. Her problem was that Sania was hitting those shots to places where she could not get to quickly enough and set up for an answer. I don't think a free arm would have helped.

On the other hand, her first serve percentage, or perhaps the effectiveness of her second serve may have been hampered. Perhaps she would have held serve more than twice in 8 service games, but I think she would have lost anyway, the way Sania was hitting today (or this whole week - she has netted a few hard swipes and missed some forehands well and long, but Sania has hardly missed many of her shots that are intended to fall not more than 6 inches from the lines -- probably something like 90% accuracy on those shots .. that is tough for the opponent, especially when those shots are coming at humanoidal pace).

Jay

[gana]

More news about Petrova's arm and her comments after the match is available in Times of India. Check it out.

[jayakris]

From that agency article in TOI,

"The arm felt all right until the end when she made me really reach for balls," said Petrova, who had a first-round bye.

That basically is what I was saying. When she can hit the shots like she is doing in La Costa, nobody can get to it and do something with it. You can reach for it, that's it.

Jay

[XYZ]

Another headline and photo in BBC :

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tennis/4744177.stm

Best of luck for the next round - Gooooo Saniaaaaaaaa

[gana]

Sania breaks into top 50.
Capriati and Maleeva lose points earned in August 2004 and so they drop out of top 50. Sania goes past Zuluaga, Martinez, Benesova, Kirilenko, Randriantefy, Stosur, Craybus and Shaughnessy. That is 10 players for you. Sania's rank as of now is 49. Time to celebrate guys. First Indian girl in top 50.

[sameerph]

In fact with 706.5 points she is at 47th rank right now. ( after taking off last year's points ) . Among those below her only Akiko Morigami & Mashona Washington are still left in the draw . They have to win next 2 rounds & get to semi-final to get past Sania.

So at worst she will be at 49 end this week. At best it can be anything depending on how far she progresses.

[gana]

I missed Vinci (605.5 pts, previous rank 58) from the list. So Sania's current rank is 48. Domachowska with 707.75 (she has been knocked out in the second round) points is ranked above Sania with 706.5 points.

[sameerph]

Gana,
Refer to the link below from WTAworld which lists Sania at 47 .

http://www.wtaworld.com/showthread.php? ... ost5895927

[gana]

Sameer,
This was before Washington's match. She beat Zvonereva and collected some more points. But I just computed that she is still below Sania. So Sania's rank should be 47. She can go up by a couple of more places if she wins the next match against Morigami.

[puneets]

Here are some pics from the Qualifyng rounds.

http://www.mfwweb.com/tennis/SD05/#Sania_Mirza

[jayakris]

Sameer,
This was before Washington's match. She beat Zvonereva and collected some more points. But I just computed that she is still below Sania. So Sania's rank should be 47. She can go up by a couple of more places if she wins the next match against Morigami.

.. Or you could read TennisIndia notes instead of the wtaworld forum and just take my word

The win gives Sania 43 quality points for beating someone ranked in the 6-10 range, in addition to 42 circuit points for reaching the final 16 .. Adding on the 4 quality points for beating Garbin, 2 each for the qualifying wins and 10.5 for the qualifying circuit points, she has 103.5 total points so far from this event, enough to take her point total to just over 705 and her ranking from 59 to about #47 next week

.. Nobody takes me seriously - as sandeep says

Jay