$585K Tier-II JP Morgan Chase WTA, Los Angeles, Aug6-14 2005

[jayakris]

OK, I got back and had to straight go to a long evening meeting. Too tired to write a long match report.

First set:

0-0 .. IB held serve at 40-15
0-1 .. SM broken at 30-40 .. Forehand wide. She won a point there by nailing 5 forehands in a row to the same spot (not more than a one foot circle) on IB's backhand side to the corner - just too damn good. The accuracy of sania's shot is something to be seen sometimes. A double fault did not help though. Netted two shots too; on one of them she seemed clearly not set - hurried it, strangely. That caused the BP.
0-2 .. IB broken at 3rd AD out BP. An 18 shot rally (the longest I have seen from Sania, which ended with a very clever loopy high ball followed by a move to a few feet inside the baseline and a fireball forehand to the right corner for the break!
1-2 .. SM broken at 15-40 .. Seemed to make a couple of mistake serves to lefty IB's strong forehand side. A little mental mistake there?
1-3 .. IB broken at 15-40 on the first BP .. Some major league returns on both flanks from Sania.
2-3 .. SM broken again .. A huge FH gave 15-15, but then two double faults in a row .. Infact 5 faults in a row (Sumanth, who was sitting with me said she seemed not to be not in her full service motion, but I had not noticed -- I saw that she was trying to hit all those serves down the middle .. i wonder if the stomach was really bothering by now) .. The second serve at 15-40 was not bad, but SM generally seemed not hitting her ground shots either with power at that point (This was the only time when the power went missing - injury or not, her shots were screamers all day otherwise) ..
2-4 .. Had two big returns to get to 30-30, but netted the next two returns .. Again looking a bit uncomfortable ..
2-5 .. Calls trainer .. Painkiller spray and tape for the stomach ..
SM seemed to have some energy back .. holds serve at 40-30 with a great deep shot.
3-5 .. Tremendous Game .. IB served for the set at 40-0 and there comes Sania with forehands and backhands flying to unimaginable places on court .. A sudden burst of energy (I think the pain spray must have been really kicking in by now) .. Sania moving very well .. Deuce .. Then as many as 10 deuces .. There were only about 2 points there where Benesova really could do anything - the rest of the time it was simply Sania doing her thing .. It was one huge shot for deuce followed by another big one either in the net or a little long/wide from Sania ... She saved SEVEN set points, and wasted 2 break points .. It was just a matter of two shots in a row falling in right for Sania or two in a row falling out or on the net .. The latter happened first, and she fell at the 8th set point.

Second set:

Nothing much to report for details in this set ... Sania showing no signs of injury .. Serving well, and her shots falling where she wanted them to. A few nice rallies, where we could also see Sania using a lot of clever variations, especially to buy some time whenever Benesova had her forehand deep and Sania on the receiving end .. Sania would hit the loopy ball back and invariably she would hit those digs back deep (not exactly lobs, but very very effective) --- again, the accuracy of these kids of variety shots Sania has are also underrated. She is too damn good at hitting deep and keeping it in whenever she is NOT going for her winner. We tend to overlook how good she is at some of those "digs" and how much power she can generate even for some of those defensive shots ... This is a key reason how she can get away with some of the foot speed problems. Sania in terrific flow, Benesova broken in games 2 and 4, but IB held serve after a deuce in the 5th somehow .. Sania's service games under no pressure at all .. Best was when Sania served two aces in the 4th game, the second one at 40-15 at 103 mph .. She walked to the chair, smiled at her mom and did a little bow .. Funny. She was clearly feeling fine in this set ...

Third set:
0-0 - IB held at 40-0 .. She served very well here .. She hardly goes over 98 mph or so on her first serve, but she placed them in the corners nicely and Sania only able to hit good returns on a couple of them .. That was unusual ..
0-1 .. SM held serve at 40-15 .. The game point was a nice volley winner (she only went up for 2 or 3 volleys today and did not mess up any of them - all FH volleys if I remember correctly)
1-1 .. IB broken at 30-40 .. A backhand cross court euclidean angled screamer (BHCC-EAS) set up the BP and an outright forehand return winner got her the break ..
2-1 .. SM broken .. IB played a smart point for 0-15 .. Came up with a volley at the end of an 8 shot rally that caught SM on the wrong foot .. 0-15 .. Something seemed off right there as her energy level dipped noticeably .. (I think this is where the stomach soreness returned) .. A DF .. 0-30 .. A weak looking first serve was returned for an outright winner by IB (I think she only had a couple of return winners all day) .. 0-40 .. Sania saved two break points by winning rallies, but at 30-40 she hit a forehand long and it was all even ..
2-2 .. SM held, though Sania had two break points, both went wasted with hard backhand service returns that hit the net... But that is her game. Wish one of those two shots had gone in ...
2-3 .. SM broken .. Now her play is clearly up and down .. Two good shots followed by two shots where she seemd unable to put any mustard on the ball .. She still saved two break points from 15-40, but then lost the next two points on errors (basically two shots that seemed off-character)
2-4 .. IB broken .. To me the shot of the match happened here, and it was a simple forehand cross court return winner from Sania that floated over the net and sank down, falling in - I am not sure how that return winner is humany possible to hit where she hit it .... I don't know .. (no this was not the usual net-burner, but Sania occasionally pulls out stuff that nobody expects .. 0-15 .. IB saved a 30-40 BP with some nice serve and volley but thentwo deep forehands got her ..
3-4 .. SM hit a 99 mph ace to start, but after 40-0, suddenly the form dips .. It was so clear to see, as her serve got returned for a winner and the next forehand went without the zip .. 30-40 .. She was in danger of a break point on the secind serve at 40-30, but a forehand error from Iveta kept her Sania of trouble ..
3-5 .. The dip in form in the previous game continues for Sania .. (I am pretty sure the injury was making her uncomfirtable .. You could see that on her mannerisms) .. IB goes up to 40-0 with so-so returns and one of them hit out long etc .. IB had a DF and then held t 40-15
4-5 .. SM broken .. Sania unable to do anything much in this game .. One shot after another not going where she wants .. She saved a 30-40 match poijt .. At AD IN, suddenly she served one 107 mph serve to the corner - almost an ace at that game point, but alas an inch out, if that! ... Hell. Wish that had gone in .. It became deuce and two errors followed (or perhaps unable to hit her shots well at this point) .. That is how it goes.

Comments --- Oh boy, if this girl ever gets 100% healthy!! .. I am not the type who gets easily impressed .. I do go the extra bit in supporting and encourgaing our players, but you would hardly hear me say superlatives about their games .. But about Sania, I am different. Jeez, I have never been impressed by somebody's tennis (OK, barring Federer's) as much as I have been about Sania's ... On the whole bloody professional tour. I mean it. The girl hits shots with power and precision which are simply out of this world. She still has more work to do, and she needs to first get fully healthy. But, make no mistake -- anybody who saw the match today saw that Benesova ( a top-50 player and a very good one) had absolutely no answers to Sania and that it was mainly only Sania's own problems that caused the loss. Any viewer out there would say that Sania played the game at a much higher level than Benesova, even in the rallies they played .. So many aspects of Sania's game are still unrecognized and under-appreciated .. The fact that when she is forced on the defensive, she can hit shots with uncanny accuracy, is something to be noted .. In other words, when she is not going for her winners, she is just way too accurate a tennis player .. But she knows that her game is to hit winners and she goes for them at the first opportunity. This is aggressive tennis at its best. Keep at it girl. I have no respect for players who do not have the solid game going in with aggression. But Sania is different - in that her game is so damn solid from the baseline that she can rally with somebody till the cows come home and they cannot beat her, if she decides to play that style. That is how accurate and solid she is in her ground strokes. If you have that part solid, yeah, I say go for your shots and get accurate at the 100-ton winners. She is getting there. I have rarely heard a racket SOUND as powerful as Sania's does, in women's tennis. And not a single grunt out there - just your plain old racket doing the heavy sound - scary! .. Again, you could ask Benesova and she would say she would not want to face Sania ever again, despite the win today. She is going to really get into people's heads, because she plays that kind of tennis.

Naseema told me that they had withdrawn from Toronto LAST week itself. That is allowed as a regular withdrawal, not an injury withdrawal (which is not allowed till you lose the week before) .. So it will be Forest Hills next, in 2 weeks. They are looking at it for only some practice. I suggested that she should withdraw from Forest Hills also if needed. The first thing is to get healthy. If she is healthy, with her kind of game, she can walk in and beat all but 20 players at the US Open even without any practice. She is that good. That is if she is healthy. So she needs to take care of that first.

.. Funny, I started by saying I was too tired to write a long report .. Didn't notice that I wrote another Mahabharatam. I guess I cannot shut up about Sania, eh?

Jay

[completelyconked]

wow.Even though she lost,it looks like sania is turning into one hell of a player.I'm also impressed that she is adding variations to her game.I read some reports of her matches in cincinatti on WTAworld and the poster himself was going on about how sania has impressive variations and is far more than just a brainless baseline basher.I remember the commentators at wimbledon gushing about the Sound her racket makes when it makes contact with the ball,something quite unique in the womens game today.Beautifully timed and almost everything hits the sweet spot . I did say that once she builds up her fitness and sorts out the serve in a year or two we could see a very special player Looks like jim Mclennan might have picked a winner in this girl...And you too jay, have dared to mention her name in the same line as federer.

[jaydeep]

Again superb reporting by Jay ... And Jay only wrote positives of Sania's match ... I was really surprised seeing Jay's ga-ga over Sania's performance .. Becoz as Jay mentioned "I am not the type who gets easily impressed " he never satisfy over player's performance that much easily .. But from Jay reports it look genuinely Sania is having all capabilities to go on top ... So now watching her progress becoming more and more interesting.

I like Jay's mentioned of "sound of racket" ... Now I m egar to watch Sania's game, which I missed until ... Hoping full recovery of Sania before USO.

Jaydeep.

[jayakris]

Well, jaydeep I said that all, because the negatives in Sania's game are very well dissected in Sania's thread - which are the improvements needed in the service and some in volleying and mobility. I am not at all an expert on the service mechanics and all that, anyway - I hardly even see how a serve looks flat or had kick or spin etc most of the time! -- so I did not want to talk about that ... As for the rest of the game, my comments come from something I wrote about in the Sania thread at length, which is that a lot of the things one would look at as improvements needed, such as how a player builds up a point, shows patience, selects shots etc, are just not applicble in Sania's case. She is a uniquely different player. Just get healthy, go out there and hit the felt off the ball because she can do that like nobody else out there .. That is all she needs to do (along with working hard on serve improvements and in other things like using the hands better for volleying) ..

When a player is capable of doing such uniquely extraordinary things with regard to power and placement of the ball, our analysis also needs to go up a notch and we too need to think differently, dropping the traditional ideas.

Now I understand why PKB kept calling me from wimbledon just to say WOW about Sania's game when he saw her there, or how Anirban Blah of Globosport who was watching the Hyderabad WTA match would keep on talking and would not put the phone down when I called in just to get the score. She is one impressive player. Jaydeep - I suggest that you buy a ticket to Kolkata and go watch her play next month.

Jay

[Sandeep]

She is one impressive player

Absolutely, but nice to see all these superlative comments from Jay.

[SaniaMirzaRulez]

It is no easy task for any player to playing againt Sania.

[shakes1974]

Absolutely, but nice to see all these superlative comments from Jay.

yesterday, i saw a couple of minutes highlights of her wimbledon match with kuznetsova (it's available on the wimbledon website) and i saw that the accolades about her game are not misplaced.

if you'll read her interviews at wim or anywhere, you'll also be happy to see that she is firmly grounded, has her head firmly on her shoulders. it's a tremendous challenge to absorb fame, adulation, success and still keep your feet on the ground but she seems capable of doing that.

[SriramP]

yesterday, i saw a couple of minutes highlights of her wimbledon match with kuznetsova (it's available on the wimbledon website)

Shakes... Is it in the Subscription videos section or the Free videos section?

[shakes1974]

sorry to say, it's in the subscription videos,

[Varma]

Nice report, Jay. Hope Sania gets enough rest to get rid of this injury and be 100% fit before the Open begins.

- Varma

[rameshlaus]

Sania in her own words after JPMC Loss.

http://www.hindu.com/2005/08/11/stories ... 211900.htm

[jaydeep]

Jay I m trying my best to be at Kolkata for Sunfeast WTA Tournament or at Delhi for our Davis Cup tie ... Hoping I manage my scheduling and attend one of these or if possible both events (before Friday at Kolkata and then in Delhi) ... Will tell u once I finalise it ... Crossing my fingers for attending these events.

But Jay u made ur point ... Yeah Sania need improvement, but still her game was something which we don't see regular basis ... And that makes her some uniquely gifted player.

Jaydeep.