A SMALL STEP FOR HINGIS, A GIANT LEAP FOR SANIA MIRZA

First Indian to win a ladies Grand slam doubles title. 

There is an air of history and nostalgia when you talk about Wimbledon. More than any other sporting place, this venue values tradition; remembers its past champions and one way or the other welcomes them back into its serene surroundings. Martina Hingis is a name for the tennis historians and irrespective of her retirement at a young age, she was welcomed back to a place where she started winning Grand slam titles. For Hingis, these seventeen years has been a lifetime's wait.

Life has come a full circle for Hingis after the victory in women's doubles. From being the youngest grand slam winner (Wimbledon doubles 1996),  in which she flourished under the guidance of the more experienced Helena Sukova; this time around she was the one who called the shots, guided Sania Mirza and together they played their best tennis in recent times.

Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis have been undoubtedly the best lady players to represent their respective countries, India and Switzerland. They reached the peak very early in their lives, then hit a plateau............ - and now together they are on an adventure to climb yet another peak. There is a lot that's in common between these two; though they have different playing styles. They complete each other's weakness on the court and in tandem, they have been refreshing on the doubles circuit.

In Martina Hingis, Sania Mirza has finally found a doubles partner with whom she can complement her partner's finesse and thought process. When they got together to play doubles, I felt there was something right about this combination and I am more so convinced now after looking at the way they fought back in those final two sets. They are enjoying their tennis.  

A pair destined for many more victories 

INDIA'S LONG WAIT FOR FAME

Twelve years ago, Sania, a child prodigy won the girls doubles event at Wimbledon. Since the time she turned professional, she has been living a life burdened with expectations. India is a country where people have a lot of hopes, where expectations come from all corners of the land and we all saw a dream, the dream of Sania lifting a Grand slam title.

Playing singles proved to be a tough battle ground; her power play and return was good to finish off few opponents - but her lack of pace to move around the court and her inability to pick the right spots to place the ball did not help her cause when she faced the top ranked players.

In spite of these weaknesses, she did progress consistently beyond first round and her best singles display at a major slam came a decade ago in New York. A fourth round appearance at the US Open facing Maria Sharapova. At that point, she had achieved enough (including a WTA singles title) to rest on her laurels as no other Indian female tennis player had come this far.

In fact, in the open era, there has never been a lady from Indian tennis who has won this consistently in singles - barring Nirupama Sanjeev (previously Vaidyanathan) who was the first Indian woman to win a round in a grand slam event (1998 Australian Open) and Shikha Uberoi who emulated that feat later at the 2004 US Open. The days of celebrating 'round' wins were long gone ever since Sania Mirza turned professional. Within a short span of time, she took the nation's expectations to another level - a place never seen before among Indian women tennis.

SINGLES TO DOUBLES

Being among the top 30 ranked women happens to be the highlight of Sania's singles career (with highest ranking of  27). However, her success was not just limited to singles; steadily she took part in many of the doubles tournament with some success. After 2007, her play was more consistent on the doubles circuit than on the singles. An athlete is never far away from getting injured and Sania's tryst with injuries started to dictate her choices and since 2008 she withdrew from many tournaments owing to discomfort in her back and right wrist.

Playing singles became more challenging, exasperating and after a string of poor performances, focussing solely on the doubles game seemed practical. Having a partner in a game was less stressful physically and with only half-a-court to cover, it suited her style of play. Since 2011, her success rate in many of the WTA competitions was on the upward trend. In these four years, she took part in 29 finals and won 18 of them - all of this contributed in her being ranked number one doubles player earlier this year.

INDIANS PLAY DOUBLES BETTER

Why do Indians play better doubles game than singles? Looking at the history of Indian tennis, there has been a strong 'tennis doubles' culture barring few sporadic, spirited individual displays. In the last sixty years, there has been junior players winning the Grand Slam title, but no one went a step further and win the seniors. The best singles performance in the recent past happens to be the bronze medal win of Paes at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.

Bronze Medal in singles at 1996 Atlanta Olympics 

The first Grand slam title of any kind for India came in 1997 and it was Mahesh Bhupathi-Rika Hiraki pair who won the mixed doubles at the French Open. Since then, there has been a series of Grand Slam titles in doubles category - men's and mixed. Now, with the recent Wimbledon victory, Sania Mirza completed this 'doubles set' by winning the ladies doubles.

Mahesh Bhupathi started the trend of winning Grand Slam titles for India in doubles - French Open 1997 

THE TRENDSETTER

In a country which is obsessed with end results, Sania Mirza has had to endure a lot of unwanted attention at times to get to a position she is right now. Forget the facilities, forget the funding and forget the support for a moment, what Sania has achieved speaks volumes about her innate qualities; her determination; her grit; motivation and the will of a world-class athlete. To these, add family support, facilities, funding and opportunities; results will definitely follow. This is how winning is done.

First Indian woman to achieve number one ranking in doubles 

What does this victory mean to Sania Mirza and to Indian tennis? Firstly, she is the top-ranked doubles player in the world and if you ain't winning, then you can forget being at the top. Sania, quite rightly expects to win every tournament she takes part in and sadly it isn't the same for other ladies in Indian tennis. While there are talented girls who sweat it out each day, it would help a great deal if they asked a question each day -  why am I sweating it out? In this era of intense connectivity, one can always find a way to secure sponsors, train at better facilities - but why? If that 'why' and 'what' is clear, then 'how' will become clear. Sania Mirza's ascent to the top in spite of the adversities she faced with injuries and personal scrutiny is an example, a template for an Indian female athlete who wishes to achieve big and not just stop at dreaming.

In 1998, the top seeded pair of Martina Hingis and Jana Novotna won the ladies doubles title and seventeen years later, the top seeded pair of Hingis and Mirza won the honours on the same court. In between, Martina Hingis has had a roller coaster ride when it comes to her tennis career and personal life. While it can be said, it is just another step forward in what has been an illustrious career for the Swiss Miss, this Wimbledon victory with Sania Mirza (first for an Indian woman in ladies doubles) is a giant leap for Indian tennis. 

Celebrating Twenty Years of Tennis in my Life

Raaghu was and will always remain the first person with whom I played tennis. This present year would be the time when we would have celebrated our 20^th year anniversary of playing tennis. The game of tennis was a short lived affair and if my memory serves right, we played for about 3-4 years. I continued with other friends for another four years into the early years of this millennium. I loved cricket and equally I enjoyed playing tennis, and Raaghu was equally excited about playing with me. He was my cousin alright; my tennis mate was apt at that time.

We watched a lot of cricket and tennis together but when it came to playing, he preferred tennis and I don’t know why. He resisted coming to play cricket with us and was always game to play one of our versions of Grand Slam tournaments. Soon this bug caught on with a lot of my friends and we had to draw the ties, have a proper line umpire and what not.

There were two courts bang opposite to our respective homes; both the court lines drawn manually by me and Raaghu. There were no different grades of hard courts, clay was nowhere to be seen and grass? Well, let’s just say it was meant for the cows to graze or to be adorned in the rectangular empty plots. After having drawn the boundaries with accuracy, the space inside those brick red lines became our playing world. We played Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and US Open – all on the same surface; the tarred roads of Bangalore and in our locality in particular.

This craze like I mentioned before caught on and attracted my peers like ants to sugar blocks. It was an amazing piece of entertainment and more importantly, an arena in which we felt we could play tennis with zero investment. Mind you, traffic was alien to us at that time and so except for few stares by pedestrians and fan gathering, the game went on regularly uninterrupted. Flood lights in the form of bright street lights were a boon and we played tennis under lights, just like Australian or the US Open.

There were three setters, five setters and doubles tournament – the frenzy went on for months and a few years. It was not a regular past time; it was seasonal which peaked with that of the professional tennis season, namely the Grand Slams. I felt for Mary Joe Fernandez losing the French Open to Steffi Graf in 1993 and immediately in the next tournament I can still recall the teary eyes of Jana Novotna (Navrathna, as I used to call her) on that Saturday evening of the Wimbledon finals. It is still etched in my memory. One of the reasons being, we started playing tennis during that time. 

When Sergei Brugera won a five set thriller against Jim Courier in the French Open finals, we also started to stretch our play and started playing five setters. The triumph of Jensen brothers in the men’s doubles and with growing popularity of our local tennis doubles game made its debut. We imitated many of the tennis players and the serve of Pete Sampras became my style, or atleast I tried hard to replicate. He won his first Wimbledon in that year and in the process went on to become my favourite player. It was Jim Courier again who lost the finals in consecutive tournaments.

I have won a Grand Slam; won many of the doubles matches and at the same time have lost too. Raaghu had his share of victories too. And that my dear friends, is how we consumed tennis outside of television - without racquets, without tennis overalls and most importantly without tennis courts. The only common equipment between the elite players and us were the use of tennis balls, and most of it was locally made.

Wilson was the biggest brand we aspired to have, and believe me twenty years ago if I were to be presented with a set of Wilson tennis balls, I would have kept it safely without letting air whistle through the vacuumed container and touch those precious tennis balls. However, there was no shortage of seriousness and we played till the last drop of sweat fell onto the ground. Yeah, there was no prize money, so what?

That was when I was nine years of age and I was hooked onto tennis just like I was crazy about playing cricket. The hero of Indian tennis back then was Leander Paes and Ramesh Krishnan. Krishnan retired few years later while Paes has continued and recently won his 14^th Grand Slam title in doubles.

I don’t quite know what me remember this phase of our childhood. Maybe it was a conversation I had in the morning which made me realise how deeply I love sports and the short work I did with tennis. I have not played a tennis match in a long time. It’s high time I played a game of tennis on a proper court, holding a racquet with a hope of winning a game, a set and probably a match. 

LONDON OLYMPICS 2012: AN INDIAN HOPE

On 27^th July 20:00 Greenwich time – the biggest multi-sport spectacle shall begin not just across London, but possibly in every country in the world. I am sure most of the earth’s human population would be glued to televisions, or on the internet to watch the Opening Ceremony.

2012 is London’s time to host the quadrennial event and preparations were on since the time they won the bid way back in 2005. It seems a long time ago, I was still an engineering student then and now all those years of work put by the London Organising Committee will be witnessed by a lot of people. They get their praise, will have share of criticisms but that’s modern life – you can never be in the limelight without accompanied by share of praises and controversies.

Well, controversies shall be aimed at the Organising Committee – be it over budget, security mess and few humanitarian and labour issues. I was in London back in 2009; I drove on the way where most of the work for Olympics was being done. It is a great feeling to be an Olympic city, isn’t it? Not many outside the sporting fraternity agreed to this. “London isn’t a developing economy so they don’t need Olympic Games to showcase the city or the country in general to the world” – echoed few concerned voices. Let’s get world economics into perspective - there was absolutely no mention of ‘recession’ when the Games were awarded to London. In fact, this could have been any city across Europe and America who were bidding for the Games. With Beijing having already hosted the Games, we can eliminate Asia as one of the candidate cities.

Amidst many issues and triumphs, here we are hours before the start of the 30^th edition of Modern Olympics. This is the time to look at the success stories of individuals and teams who have been preparing for the Games for that one moment of glory. During the Olympics – it isn’t about the Organising Committee; the talk of the town will be the athletes, so it should be. The mere mention of athletes will be termed ‘success’ – as Olympics is about them and rest of them just play a supporting role.

Being an Indian, I am pumped up for these games than ever before. Main reason being, this is the best chance we have to improve our record and evolve as a sporting nation.  

For a moment, let’s forget there are better countries in the world who have been consistently winning from years. No other country measure to the size and ambiguity as India do. Sports, let’s face it isn’t a top priority in our country. There are larger issues at stake, but doesn’t mean sports must be ignored. Every sector has a department and because of the failure of other sectors, it doesn’t mean we have to not give importance to Sports. I have heard people saying – Sports doesn’t fill a poor man. The issue isn’t with Sports; it is the other departments that are supposed to be looking into that. Honestly, it is sad that Sports have been overlooked for so many reasons in the name of reasons given aplenty.

Even while sanctions have been made from the Government, there weren’t and aren’t enough skilled and visionary people working for the federations to make the best use of facilities given. You don’t need to have the best facilities, but we have been poor in optimising the resources. Be it the way money spent sporadically in the name of Sports or lack of enthusiasm, and looking Sports as one of the ways to get to power. This isn’t abnormal by any standards – The whole world operates this way and sporting world isn’t different, but not at the cost of overlooking the basics. Developed countries (Sports or Politics) play power games at a higher level where as it starts from the low level here – Reality check.

So next time, before we compare India to any other sporting nation – let us take a moment to reflect if that actually makes sense. Mere comparing to other countries exposes our shortcomings in the lack of understanding as to how our country operates.

India, the sporting country passed the baton from hockey to cricket after the success of Indian cricket (World Cup 1983) which coincided with downfall of hockey. From 1984, it has been a downward slide for Indian hockey at the Olympics. History speaks about us being the 8-time Olympic champions – Well the last time was a good 32 years ago. Now history is anything but forgotten – as we live in those moments and try to pacify ourselves than trying to correct the present mess, hockey is in.

Post independence, there has been only handful of people to have won medals for India. Barring Hockey, we have had seven athletes who have won the medals for India. K.D. Jadhav won the bronze medal for Wrestling at Helsinki (1952 Games) and it took a 44 years and a gap of 10 Olympics before we had another individual winning the medal. Leander Paes did it and all the countrymen were over the moon. I was 12 years then and it was my second Olympics after having watched the 1992 Barcelona Games for the first time on TV telecast. It took me time to understand the meaning of it, but I was thrilled because he won. Putting some historic perspective - Sports was either winning or losing back then, and not much emphasis was given to the process of either. Personally it is different now – and I don’t have that innocence anymore. Leander Paes winning was also the first Indian medal since the Hockey Gold at the Moscow Olympics. In a way, the bronze tennis medal was a turning point and made Olympics as a focal point in Indian sports.

Karnam Malleshwari became the first woman to win an Olympic medal for India (weightlifting 69 kg category) at Sydney and so there were some celebrations in few sections of our society. It also coincided with a transition phase in India where you had a lot of women taking up jobs. Malleshwari’s medal gave a boost to the future of Indian women sports. In the last decade we have seen some good improved performances by Indian women athletes, but none went on to win the Olympic medal. But we are getting there.

Though we had tasted Gold medals, it was only at the team sport level. Silver medals individually were previously won by Norman Pritchard (1900 Games - two silver medals, a Brit representing British India), none came post independence. It was the double-trap shooter Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, who went a step ahead and took the silver medal. Indian sports seemed to have evolved, slowly and steadily. Three Olympics, three individual medals – it was high time wasn’t it, especially when looked from an Indian context?

India is compared to China in terms of economy and population. But the ideologies remain different and more often the foundation plays an important role in sustaining and giving any projects some effectiveness. To demonstrate as the next super power, China took the opportunity as hosts to showcase that they are to be seen as world leaders in sports as well. The greatest example one can give is demonstration.

China did just that, as they ended up winning 51 Gold Medals at the 2008 Games whereas India celebrated similarly for winning the first individual gold. I can safely say, more money was spent in India for that one gold medal than what China would have spent celebrating 51 Gold medals. That’s difference in culture isn’t it? Irrespective of our situations, I was happy to note that, progress was happening and 2008 Games ended up being the most successful games for India – winning three medals (one Gold medal and two bronze medals).

Abhinav Bindra became the toast of the country whereas Sushil Kumar and Vijender Singh weren’t left too behind.  I was delighted to see more than one medal in the medals tally. That was a first for me and those eyes still retained that innocence in 2008. In a way 2008 was the year when I took a serious decision to study Sports and make that as a career option. And here I am four years later, working in the sports industry having different perspectives about Sports than what I had and for the first time hoping, expecting medals from India. Losing my innocence? Or is this a process of discovering Indian Sports?

Yes, earlier I watched the games with an open mind. Not anymore - as much as I am open to how things pan out; I am never shy to offer my opinion. It isn’t just being patriotic and being blindly supportive, but it is now looking from a broader perspective. While I am not expecting miracles (that’s better left when not expecting), I am looking at some serious performances in the coming two weeks at London. Shooting, Boxing, Wrestling, Badminton, Archery and Tennis are the sports I and the entire nation will be looking at. As an Indian, I am expecting 5 medals from this edition. After having seen a lot of work going through in the last four years, five medals is not an unfair expectation. Five or more medals would do for me keeping the reality of our sporting situation in the country.

On an end note I just wanted to highlight - Sporting triumphs doesn’t fill our stomachs, but ask any fan or a follower/watcher of Sports – It provides a moment of joy to celebrate success as if it was our own. That is the power of Sports and in Olympics the joy gets bigger as it will be done on a world stage. It isn’t just about the medals overall but it is the way you play and as an addition, for going the distance he/she will be remembered for that particular moment,  the moment where words fail to explain the feeling. Joy, tears, pain, agony and disappointment becomes the five symbolic human expressions through we understand the reason why Olympics exist.

Like I said, I am looking at the Olympics only from a sporting perspective as the other issues should remain backstage for the next two weeks and when Paralympics begin at the conclusion of Olympics. There is a time for every discussion and the time currently is just about the Olympics –  It is about  10,500 athletes coming from 204 countries (few playing under Olympic Flag), taking part in 26 Sports over 302 events. For a first in the history of Olympics - female athletes from all those 204 countries will be participating. Now isn’t this world coming to one place?