Devvarman, Mirza set a first for India in US Open

Somdev Devvarman [ Images ] and Sania Mirza [ Images ] posted first-round victories on opening day of the US Open [ Images ] to become the first man and woman from India to reach the second round of the same grand slam event. Mirza defeated Olga Govortsova of Belarus 6-2, 3-6, 6-3, and qualifier Devvarman beat Portugal's Frederico Gil 6-3, 6-4, 6-3.
"For a long time... I was the only one (from India) playing singles in the main draw of the grand slams," said 22-year-old Mirza, playing in her fourth US Open.
"It's great that Somdev is playing so well since the beginning of the year and getting better.
"I'm really happy that we have two Indians in the second round of a slam. I don't know if it's ever happened before."
Devvarman added: "I don't want to jinx myself but I feel good about where I am. I've had a couple of quality wins.
"It gives me a lot of confidence and belief that I can come out and compete with anyone. My game is up there with the rest."
The International Tennis Federation confirmed they became the first Indian duo to advance together in slam singles.
Mirza said it was wonderful few days for Indian sport as the milestone in New York followed the success of the Force India [ Images ] Formula One team, which secured pole position for last weekend's Belgian Grand Prix [ Images ] before the outfit's Giancarlo Fisichella [ Images ] finished the race in second place.
"It's great," she said. "Things are looking up. They have been for awhile now, but I guess they're looking further up."
Mirza said merely competing at Flushing Meadows was a success for her after a 2008 season in which she was sidelined by a wrist injury and surgery that threatened her career.
"This is my comeback year from injury," said Mirza, who missed some seven months of competition.
"Physically I think I've never been fitter, in terms of how I move around the court and hitting the ball but I'm a little rusty."
Mirza said being sidelined for so long made her appreciate what she had taken for granted. "One day you're on the tennis court, you feel, 'Oh, I'm the fittest person, I'm an athlete.' And the next day... I could not even pick up a fork to eat, it was so painful."
Mirza, who reached the fourth round of the Open in 2005, said she had been playing some Challengers tournaments, winning one and reaching the final of another before returning home for more treatments on her wrist.
"I know I have the weapons and know I can do it. Now I play a seed and really I have no pressure," she said about her second-round match against 10th seed Flavia Pennetta [ Images ] of Italy [ Images ].

Sania Mirza in semis of Aegon Classic

Sania Mirza's impressive run at the Aegon Classic continued as the Indian ace sealed a semifinal berth by beating 16th seed Hungarian Melinda Czink in straight sets.
The unseeded Indian survived some anxious moments in the dying minutes of the match before pulling off a 6-1, 7-6 (4) in the quarter-finals of the USD 220,000 WTA event being played in the build up to the Wimbledon.
Sania will next face winner of the other quarter-final match between 13th seed Slovakian Magdalena Rybarikova and unseeded Polish Urszula Radwanska.
Sania went ahead by breaking Melinda at love in the fourth game. The Hungarian double faulted and the Indian pounced on the first chance and held next game to surge to a 4-1 lead.
Melinda struggled with her serve and a flurry of double faults again helped Sania's cause as the Indian capitalised on her rival's error to get one more break in the sixth game and served out the set in the game.
The double fault bug bit the Indian too in the second set as she committed two in the fourth game to hand a 3-1 lead to the Hungarian

Sharapova lost her match but won the crowd

Maria Sharapova left the French Open on Tuesday following a 6-0 6-2 quarter-final demolition by Slovak Dominika Cibulkova but it was not all bad news as she had finally won over the fickle Roland Garros crowd.
The former world number one, who was jeered off court after being eliminated in 2007 and 2008, was backed enthusiastically as she battled past her first four opponents in three sets.
"Allez Maria!" became a regular chant heard around Suzanne Lenglen Court and when the Russian found herself 6-0 5-0 down against the 20th seeded Cibulkova, the volume of support reached defeaning levels, especially when she saved a match point with a forehand winner.
The 102nd-ranked Sharapova, who is on a comeback trail following a nine-month injury layoff, saved three more to the delight of the fans but finally bowed out on the fifth.
The crowd still gave her a standing ovation.
"I was very appreciative of the way they were rooting for me, asking for me to fight and to keep working and find a way to turn things around," Sharapova told a news conference.
"I've had a really great last few weeks here, and I can only tell them that I'll be back next year."
Cibulkova, who will face world number one Dinara Safina for a place in Saturday's final, was taken aback by the crowd reaction.
"I was a little bit surprised because this never happened to me that so many people were maybe not against me, but they wanted Maria to go, to play, to beat me or to watch longer our tennis," she said.
Sharapova, who returned to singles action last month at the Warsaw Open, said she was not too bothered by fact she almost lost the match without winning a game.
"The only real difference is numbers. Like I said, I don't really care about numbers," she said.
"It's either a W or an L, and I prefer W. If it's 7-6 in the third and you come out with a loss, what's the difference? You lose.
"Obviously you try to give 100 per cent and you try to fight for everything. And I've always been a fighter and I will be."
When Cibulkova realised she was about to whitewash Sharapova, her nerves got the better of her.
"It was really tough, because when I was up 6-0, 5-0, 40-30, in this moment I realised what I could do," she said
"I realise I can beat Maria Sharapova 6-0 6-0 and to go to the semi-finals in a grand slam.
"I got shocked a little bit."

French Open: Sharapova, Nadal advance; Safin loses

On a day of adieus at the French Open, Maria Sharapova managed to stick around.
Trailing through most of the third set in her toughest test since shoulder surgery, Sharapova pulled out a 6-2, 1-6, 8-6 victory over 11th-seeded Nadia Petrova on Wednesday to reach the third round at Roland Garros, her return to Grand Slam tennis.
"I kind of started stumbling away. Things went in the wrong direction," said Sharapova, who missed the US Open and Australian Open. "I was just glad I could pick myself up and keep fighting."
That she did: Five times, Petrova was one point away from serving for the match. But Sharapova didn't allow her to convert those chances.
"She really showed, even though she has been out for a while, she's willing to compete till the end," Petrova acknowledged.
Sharapova's French Open continues, as does Rafael Nadal's winning streak at Roland Garros — which he extended to a tournament-record 30 matches — but there will be no more trips to the clay-court major for Marat Safin or Fabrice Santoro.
Both are retiring at season's end, and both bowed out Wednesday, albeit in quite contrasting ways, which is fitting, given their polar-opposite styles of play and personalities.
The big-hitting, loud-talking Safin succumbed after a 4½-hour, five-set bit of theater; the spin-mixing, gentlemanly Santoro played all of eight minutes to conclude his loss to Christophe Rochus in a match suspended the night before by darkness.
"My game style was out of date when I arrived on the tour. I got on the tour in the '90s, and my style dated back to the '70s," said Santoro, who tied a French Open record by playing in his 20th French Open. "So when I arrived, I was, you know, 20 years late already."
Safin, meanwhile, entertained as only he can, diving for shots, kicking at the clay in disgust, and gesturing at fans to make even more noise when they got on his case for arguing calls.
The two-time major title winner eventually was beaten by 134th-ranked Josselin Ouanna of France 7-6 (2), 7-6 (4), 4-6, 3-6, 10-8.
"I played terrible," the 20th-seeded Safin said.
He was done as dusk fell, around the time Venus Williams lost the first set of her match against Lucie Safarova. They were told to pack up, because there wasn't enough light

Sania crashes out of French Open singles

Indian tennis ace Sania Mirza crashed out of French Open women's singles event after losing in straight sets to Kazakhstan's Galina Voskoboeva on Tuesday.
Sania went down 4-6 6-7 (3) in a contest lasting a little over an hour-and-a-half.
Sania, who has never gone beyond the second round at Roland Garros, had little match practice going into the clay court event.
The Indian's rustiness was quite evident in the six double faults she committed in the very first set. Sania's failure to convert any of the four break points that she earned only added to her problems.
Voskoboeva converted a crucial break in the seventh game to clinch the first set in 46 minutes.
Sania put up a slightly better show in the second set and cut down on her double faults but 14 unforced errors pulled her back.
After losing her serve twice, Sania broke back to take the set into a tie-breaker. But Voskoboeva, who had lost to Sania in their only past encounter, dominated the proceedings thereafter and clinched the tie-breaker 7-3.
Sania is still in fray in the doubles event where she has teamed up with Taipei's Chia-Jung Chuang.
Sania and Chuang, seeded 14th, will open their campaign against Turk-Belgian pair of Ipek Senoglu and Yanina Wickmayer.

A new direction for future of US tennis

U.S. tennis was a formidable force at the Sony Ericsson Open, by today’s standards at least.
Serena Williams won the women’s title for the fifth time. Andy Roddick ended a streak of 11 consecutive losses to Roger Federer. James Blake matched his best Key Biscayne showing by reaching the quarterfinals. Lindsay Davenport scored her biggest victory since becoming a mother when she beat No. 2-ranked Ana Ivanovic.
None of those results alleviated concerns about the future of American tennis, because Williams is 26, Roddick is 25, Blake is 28 and Davenport is 31. The grooming of talent in the United States has stalled, while waves of precocious youngsters keep surfacing in Europe, Asia and South America.
“We’re seeing the emergence of players from all over the globe, countries that include Serbia, Croatia, Cyprus, China, India,” said Arlen Kantarian, the U.S. Tennis Association’s CEO for professional tennis. “We’re feeling the impact. It’s a new world. We recognize the reality, and we’re committed to change.”
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The best news last week for American tennis might have come off the court. The USTA hired Davis Cup captain Patrick McEnroe to supervise player development as part of a greater commitment to grooming future champions.
In the past, the USTA defined its role as to help academies and parents develop players. Now the association wants to take the lead.
“I’ve been arguing this for 10 years—if you’re going to do it, why not do it all the way?” McEnroe said. “The USTA takes a lot of heat over the years for `Where are the players?’ So you might as well step up and be accountable.”
The USTA is creating an advisory board and coaches commission to help scout and develop talent. McEnroe will coordinate the developmental program, serve as a super scout and reach out to academies and tennis parents. He’ll also oversee a training center for elite juniors in Boca Raton, Fla.
In short, the USTA and McEnroe are taking responsibility for getting Americans into the second week of Grand Slam tournaments.
“We had to get in the game,” USTA president Jane Brown Grimes said. “The other Grand Slam countries are taking big steps in this direction.”
Critics of the USTA may greet with skepticism the latest moves, which include a 50-percent increase in spending on player development next year. The association wins praise for its marketing and promotional campaigns, but past pledges to improve the grooming of players have gone unfulfilled, resulting in a long, slow decline in U.S. results.
In 2007, for only the second time in 20 years, no American made the singles finals at the U.S. Open. U.S. men went 0-9 at the French Open, their worst showing there in at least 40 years.
On the women’s side, only one American younger than 26—Ashley Harkleroad— is ranked in the top 100. Roddick is the youngest of the three Americans in men’s top 50.
By contrast, other countries with ambitious developmental programs have enjoyed a tennis boom

Sania slips to 32nd spot in WTA rankings

Sania Mirza slipped out of top 30 bracket after losing three positions to be 32nd in the latest WTA rankings issued on Monday.Sania, who will open her campaign at the Qatar Open on Tuesday, however, maintained her doubles ranking at 23.India's second best women's player, the US-based Sunitha Rao had her singles ranking intact at 182 though she lost one place in doubles to be 126th.In the ATP list, doubles duo of Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi have maintained their top-20 positions at 15 and 19 respectively.

Does money matter for Sania?

Sania Mirza has to deal with a fresh flap after the tennis star pulled out of the Bangalore Open on Monday claiming that she was doing so to avoid stirring up another controversy. She withdrew from the WTA tournament saying that a new controversy seemed to crop up every time she stepped on the court in India.

But a section of the media reported on Tuesday that Sania pulled out of the tournament because she was offered less appearance money than she asked for. Sania’s father, Imran Mirza, reacted strongly to this. "This is exactly why we decided not to field her.

"My daughter is tired of the controversies that the media creates," Imran told this newspaper. "We gave the reasons for her withdrawal. There is no hidden reason for not participating in the Bangalore Open. Appearance money was never a point of contention," he added.

Sania had said that her manager (Mahesh Bhupathi, also the head of Globosport, the agency that manages Sania’s career and handled the Bangalore Open till last year) advised her not to play in India this year. Bhupathi could not be reached for comment on this new angle to the story as he is busy playing for India in the Davis Cup tie against Uzbekistan.

Sundar Raju, the Karnataka State Lawn Tennis Association secretary and tournament director of the $600,000 Tier II Bangalore Open, said: "All I can say is that we, as an association, do not recognise any appearance cost. "If a corporate or a sponsor approaches us for a tie-up with a player, we try and mediate in order to facilitate sponsor activity at the tournament," he added.
Interestingly, Jaidip Mookerjea, the tournament director of Sunfeast Open, the other WTA tournament that is held in India, said the organisers of a WTA tournament do have a say in deciding the appearance money of a player.

"The organisers, the WTA and the player’s agent sit together and decide the appearance money," he told this newspaper.The former Davis Cup captain also expressed surprise at Sania’s decision. "I’m sure she has some very strong reason to pull out. I can’t accept controversies as a reason to pull out of a Tier II tournament held in one’s own country.

"She would have gained a lot of ranking points had she played in the tournament. Besides, she would have enjoyed tremendous crowd support," Mookerjea said.