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

[nkoth]

For those who can't find it, here's the stadium schedule for tomorrow:

Tuesday, August 9, 2005

Stadium (from 11.00hrs)
1. Daniilidou vs. Salerni
2. Mirza vs. Benesova
3. Washington vs. Martinez
4. Linetskaya vs. K.Bondarenko
5. Sharapova vs. Kirilenko (NB 19.00hrs)
6. Koukalova vs. Frazier

-neil

[nkoth]

The winner in Sania's match will meet Anna Chakvetadze, who surprised me by beating Li Na in straight sets today...

[R1] (16) Anna Chakvetadze (RUS) d. Li Na (CHN) 75 64

-neil

[jayakris]

Terrific schedule. That lets me go there and leave by 3 pm to get back to Irvine for an unavoidable work meeting at 4.30 pm .. Excellent! .. Hope Danii takes care fo Salerni quickly and Sania gets on court fast...

Jay

[jayakris]

OK, I will be calling in to Varma with scores and he will be updating the scores here during the match. We are all set for tomorrow!!!!!

Jay

[jaydeep]

Excellent Jay ... We will egarly waiting ur updates and more importantly match report ...

And next week break from hectic schedule will be blessing for Sania to recover from stomach pull before US Open.

Jaydeep.

[completelyconked]

Sania I don't think can beat Shrapova! Sharapova will have an easy game. Check out Sharapova's shots and their angles. Noway Sania is going to return them. I doubt if she can even reach them

As usual we are all getting ahead of ourselves .With her stomach injury,i'm not even sure if sania can get past benesova .At sania's current level i'd put my money on maria.But to tell you the truth,i think if sania plays her best, Maria is the top ten player she has the best chance at upsetting .Yes maria has great angles but so does sania(even better probably if you check out the recent reports on sania's matches ).Maria is a poor mover,her footwork is subpar,and she has a one-dimensional power game that sania would love.Sania's groundstrokes are hard enough to read even for a great mover like serena(check out how many times she was wrong-footed in the AO match),and i think maria's footwork would be harshly exposed.Maria doesn't have any variety, and relies on overpowering opponents(precisely why venus blasted her off court at wimbledon this year),and sania from what i've seen recently,has difficulty with the players with a lot of variety in their shots who get a lot of balls back.She loves pace.And when it comes to power,sania is unmatched in the game.As for maria's technically suspect forehand,its not worthy of being talked of in the same breath as sania's .Realisitically speaking with sania's serve being on-and-off the way it is, maria is the hot favourite.But once sania sorts out her serve,in a couple of years i think that sania will be able to beat maria regularly.Don't be surprised if i'm right .
I think you over-estimate sharapova.She's no Serena.She's fantastic and much better than sania at this point,but imo sania is like an indisciplined,inexperienced,but more powerful and more talented version of maria.

[Sandeep]

Maria is a poor mover,her footwork is subpar,and she has a one-dimensional power game that sania would love.

My god!!! Maria is a poor Mover . Did you say Maria is a poor mover.

As for maria's technically suspect forehand,its not worthy of being talked of in the same breath as sania's

but imo sania is like an indisciplined,inexperienced,but more powerful and more talented version of maria.

I have nothing much to say. I am totally surprised with your comments.

[sandmxg]

sorry completely conked but u cant really compare sania and Maria ...Coz first of all maria is No. 2 in the world and a grand slam champion and is actually lil younger than Sania ...So its not fair to maria if u say that she has a one dimensionall power game and a sub standard forehard..Coz all said and done shes damn good !!
Goodluck to sania For her first match...cmon sania

[atulra]

Does anyone know whether it is certain that Sania Mirza is not going to play next week?

[insideout]

conked it is not right to compare Sania with Maria, because Maria has had best coaches and training partners, which Sania did not. Secondly Maria is world No. 2 and a winner of a grand slam title. It is absolutely wrong to tell that Maria is a poor mover and has substandard groundstrokes.....her groundstrokes are good and so is her movement on court.. Sania is older than Maria, and is inexperienced(playing at top 10 level), Maria has been able to achieve so much at a very young age. Neither are we overestimating Maria, nor are we underestimating Sania, on this given day Maria is better than Sania because she ahas been exposed to the best training and has played at top 50 level longer than Sania. As you said Sania may be able to beat Maria if she develops her overall game, but I think the time span of 2 years is too short. We'll have to wait for Sania to develop into such a player,......Hope that happens soon

Sania!!

[jayakris]

Does anyone know whether it is certain that Sania Mirza is not going to play next week?

Patience, man. These things do not get decided that early. I won't be surprised if she loses tomorrow and gets 7 days off that she would consider playing next week by tuesday .. Why should she withdraw now itself?

First of all, till she plays and finishes this week, she is not allowed to withdraw from next week - you can't say that you WILL BE injured next week and withdraw now, when you are not injured enough not to play this week. So she will have to wait till she is done with the LA matches to withdraw from next week.

Jay

[completelyconked]

lol.I knew that post would start a storm .I did not say maria has substandard groundstrokes.No way in hell!she's excellent!I said her forehand is technically not the best(which it is.Ask anyone)And maria's forehand,good as it is can defnitely not be compared with a forehand that many say is almost as good as Graf's(i've always felt her forehand was beyond compare,but i have to admit that sania has certain elements of it) .Maria's forehand is considered to be a problem area for her though it has improved vastly .And i did say that maria is a far superior player than sania at the moment .But maria's footwork is definitely not the best.Take a close look at her matches again.The fact that maria has won a grandslam and is world number 2 has nothing to do with anything that i wrote about.I'm expecting her to beat sania(comfortably even ) if they do meet,but i said that in a couple of years IMO sania has the potential to be a better player than her.That does not mean that sania will win a GS or reach number 1,because with her style of play you never know where she could end up,but she can be a better player.I must admit, i initially thought that sania was a bit overhyped as a player,and people on this forum occasionally went overboard(which i myself seem to be doing now ).But after reading that article by McLennan and taking a closer look at her matches again i think sania could be a much better player than i realised.Because what i've noticed is that sania plays the ball extremely late and players who give themselves that extra fraction of a second to play their shots are a rare bunch.This is what gives sania the ability to play shots that not many players can play(also what makes sachin so much better than anyone else).That ability is what made agassi the best returner of serve and best baseliner in the world(despite the fact that his movement was not the best),and it is this ablilty that is making Roger a nightmare for everyone to deal with.I thought McLennan was going a bit overboard in saying that Sania could be the next 'Real Thing',but i have a feeling its this ability which he saw in her,despite the current flaws in her game that made him say that.Once sania improves her fitness i think we could see a very different player .Of course,i have no idea whether she can even reach the top 10,or even sort out the technical flaws,but i have a feeling she could become an amazing player.I think this is why Brett himself said,if sania does what she needs to to improve her game theres no limit to what she can achieve.We'll wait an see .

[atulra]

Thanks Jay, I asked because the Rojers Cup is a big tournament and some points there can prove to be handy.

[rameshlaus]

Jay/Varma,
The scores will be updated in this forum is it not.For some reason,I'm not able to access the chat room. Just wanted to check.

Thanks
Ramesh

[atulra]

The latest Flash in Rediff Site shows that Sania has pulled out of the Rogers Cup,

but as we discussed in the forum that one cannot pull out of the Tourney with the current one going on,

i wonder whats going on Jay, we just discussed this matter today.