Sunday, September 04, 2005

a hit or miss girl ...

Sania Mirza just finished her first exposure to the big center stage - playing #1 Maria Sharapova in front of a packed holiday crowd at Arthur Ashe stadium. Everyone kind of expected the outcome, but it turned out to be a blowout 6/2, 6/1 ... a rather disappointing finish .. turned out to be a dud!

a hit or miss girl ...
a trigger happy type of player ...
terrific racket speed ...
she definitely has to work on her second serve ...
hard hitting ...
streaky ...
only 76mph on her second serve ...
an 82mph first serve ...
has tremendous ball-striking ability, but a lot needed in just about every other department.
sania has all the building blocks in place, but lots of work to be done.
both are still 18, maria hits hard too - but has got great fitness, footwork, and sets up the point great

these were just some of the comments about sania during the match from mary carillo, john mcenroe and dick enberg on CBS. this was my first opportunity to watch a full match of sania mirza and i must say i was sort of disappointed (the hype had raised my expectations too much i think!) ... she moved sluggishly, was seriously trigger-happy and relies far too much on trying to blast the ball through. but she is quite young, and inexperienced and hopefully her coaches will help reign in some of the zealousness for some focused aggression. ofcourse i am merely an amateur USTA league tennis player ... and its just my opinion. looking forward to more success for sania on the WTA circuit.

[Added later] I was just watching the Serena v/s Venus Williams game, and started to wonder if Sania Mirza was really ready for the top yet .... the difference in consistency and shot selection is just dramatic - its a long road for Sania, hopefully she will make rapid strides ... she has won the juniors event at wimbledon, and her overall result at the US Open is heartening. a top 50 ranking will allow her an automatic entry to a lot more tournaments, allowing her to build her skills and match up against the top players in women's tennis ...

i think its time i used my USTA membership to get discounts on US Open tickets ... maybe next year!

2 comments:

Ravi said...

she definitely has to work on her second serve ...

Much before that she needs to work on her first serve! There shouldn't be a need to have a secind serve to begin with...not so often!

M said...

She has pretty good ground strokes. But her serve leaves much to be desired.

And of course she needs to grow into that level of maturity as a player.