I am not a ‘news’ breaker. My blog is not ‘live’ blog. So this may have already shown up in various blogs already, but I will ‘report’ it anyway.

Sania Mirza has won her second round match at the US Open and becomes the first Indian woman to reach that stage. Ever.

Nice.

Since I took the day off today, I was fortunate enough to see some of her game. Before I get into the game, I’d like the mention that USA Network commentators were raving about Sania. Also, she got a match on Louis Armstrong stadium and did get featured on the USA Network’s coverage despite the fact that Sharapova was playing on the other court.

So having seen her for the first time in action I can say a few things:

1. She does have some power - some of her shots ripped through and I was quite impressed. Her frame does not truly suggest that she could generate that much power.
2. Conditions were quite windy so some of it could be attributed to the wind, but she has a lot of unforced errors. At various important stages of the match, she committed a silly error and gave up momentum.
3. She is certainly not comfortable at the net and with overheads. I know both are special skills and a lot of tennis players are not comfortable at the net or with overheads, and Sania is just one of them. Again, the windy conditions could be a factor there too.
4. She has an air of confidence around her. She does not look like an 18-year old playing her first US Open. (Is it her first US Open?)
5. She has a lot of bling on her! There was so much talk of Serena’s bling, but Sania’s earrings show a lot of bling too! I will try to look for some pics of her and post them to this blog later.

It is heartening to see that she does have the fundamentals to go deep into tournaments and I won’t be surprised if she keeps performing like this or better in the next few years. And I also hope that she creates more tennis players, female in particular, in India. And there is the Russian female revolution to use as inspiration. Now that sponsors are willing to throw some money at them, and with the overdose of cricket, maybe tennis could be an interesting career option!