The Sania Mania!

On Friday, it became known that Sania Mirza had become the first Indian woman to reach the 4th round of a Grand Slam and that she would face off against Maria Sharapova on Sunday. I had already bought tickets for the men's quarterfinals, but the prospect of catching this match in person was too much for me to resist. So, I decided that spending another 50 bucks for this opportunity was worth it. I managed to rope in a couple of my friends too. The only problem was the schedule of play for Sunday was not yet out on Friday evening. However, at that time, tickets were available for Sunday only for the night session on center court. Well, with Sharapova in the match, we were certain the match would be on center court. But, obviously the chances of it being in the morning or evening were even ... After pondering over the situation for a few minutes, my friends and I decided to go ahead and buy the tickets for the night session on Sunday. Clearly, we were just gambling and if the match turned out to be in the morning, we would be screwed. But, we decided that if match does get scheduled for the evening, we shouldn't have to blame ourselves later for not grabbing the tickets while they were available.

Then, on Saturday afternoon, the schedule for Sunday was put up on usopen.org. And, as lady luck would have it, the match did get scheduled for the AFTERNOON! I immediately checked again on ticketmaster, and obviously there were no tickets available for any session on Sunday. Still hoping against hope, I kept checking for the next hour. Also checked other random sites found by googling that were selling tickets for the Open. No luck. After getting over the depression that this had brought forth on me, I decided there is no point going to the night session. I would get to see Kim Clijsters and Roger Federer in action, but their opponents were pathetic. Having already been to the US Open last summer, I certainly had no excitement left in me for "just going to the Open". Last summer, I had been to the US Open on the second Monday and though I was excited and all, the fact that both the matches I saw were not hotly contested by any means left me wanting for more. That is why I decided to go for the men's quarterfinals this time (the tickets for the semis and finals were way too expensive!). Amidst this mindset, watching two damp squibs on a Sunday night certainly didn't seem appealing.

So, I set out to sell the 3 tickets I had. After googling once again, I found a couple of random sites where I posted that I am looking to sell three tickets for Sunday night. I was certainly not very hopeful of these tickets getting sold. But, within half an hour of me putting up the posting, my phone rang! It was some desi dude called Suresh from Delaware who was interested in buying my tickets. He was extremely excited and he even offered to drive all the way to NJ to pay me by cash. Then, after talking for a bit, I asked him "You are looking for tickets for the night session, rite?". He immediately lost all his enthusiasm and cried out "NO!". It turned out that one of the sites I had posted on had goofed up and listed my post under both the day and night sessions. In the next half an hour, I received 4 more calls. All from desis around NY and I first up asked them the question "You are looking for tickets for the day session, rite?" and as soon as they said "Yes", I added "I only have tickets for the night session." and broke their hearts. I received a few emails too, and all were asking for tickets for the day session. That Suresh dude also called me back and asked me if I knew someone who had tickets for the day session. I guess he thought I was some sort of broker/agent! :)) Clearly no one was interested in buying my tickets for the night and so, I went back home on Saturday night consoling myself that I'll atleast get to see Federer from close quarters :(

I came back to the lab today and found that 10 more people had called me! All of them must have been for the tickets; none were from numbers of people I knew. I received one more call within a few minutes of coming in and I asked him the standard question by now whether he was looking for tickets for the day session. And lo and behold, he said "No". And he was looking to buy all 3 tickets too. Great! So, finally, I did manage to dispose off with the 3 tickets bought by gambling in the heat of the moment. If Sania does reach the higher echelons of the tennis world sometime in the future, I guess I'll be going around telling this story often :)

Anyway, I did catch Sania's match on CBS today afternoon. The only other time I had seen her play was when she faced off against Serena Williams in this year's Australian Open. At that time, having absolutely no expectations from her, I was pleasantly surprised by her power-packed game (remember my earlier post about Satisfaction = Performance - Expectation? :)). Her forehand was awesome and she whacked off numerous winners with it even against an opponent as formidable as Serena. But, her consistency, both in terms of groundstrokes and first server percentage, was pathetic. It seemed like all you had to do beat her was put the ball back in her half of the court consistently and she would self-destruct. I did not manage to catch her game on TV again after that, but her ranking had progressed by leaps and bounds into the top 50. So, I was hoping her game would have significantly improved by now. Based on the evidence of her match today against Sharapova, that clearly is not the case. Her serve is still pathetic and she makes as many errors as the number of winners she pulls off.

I am certainly not belittling her game. All that I'm saying is that there are clear areas for her to work on, assuming she aspires to continue her rise through the WTA rankings. Her current game may ensure that she wins the first 3-4 rounds in most tournaments and keeps her ranking around the 40 mark. But, to break into the top 20 and go further in Grand Slams, she'll need to work on her game. I hope all the hype around her doesn't get to her, and that over the next couple of years, she does manage to improve her game. Though tennis is an exciting sport, having an Indian to support certainly makes it all the more exciting :) Go Sania!!

Cheers,
Harsha