Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Sania all set to shed her singledom status; engagement today

Sania Mirza’s days of singledom come to an end tonight with the Indian tennis ace all set to get engaged to childhood friend Sohrab Mirza in a private ceremony here.




Sohrab is an MBA student and son of a city-based businessman.



The 22-year-old Sania and Sohrab (23) will exchange rings at 8.30pm at a posh city hotel tonight.

Double fault : Second man professed his love for Sania Mirza

A second man has been detained after professing his love for Indian tennis star Sania Mirza at her Hyderabad home.


















Ms Mirza is to be engaged to a family friend on Friday
Ajay Singh Yadav told the police that he had been in love with Ms Mirza - ranked 85th in the world - for five years and wanted to marry her.
On Wednesday another man, Mohammad Ashraf, was arrested after threatening to kill himself if Ms Mirza did not marry him. Both men are in custody.
The tennis player is to be engaged to a family friend on Friday.
Security has been tightened at Sania Mirza's bungalow in the upmarket Banjara Hills area of Hyderabad.
The police said Ajay Singh, from Noida in Uttar Pradesh, arrived in the city in the morning and rushed to Banjara Hills, saying he wanted to meet the tennis player.
When he did not go away despite warnings, the police took him in to custody.
"I have loved her for the last five years, and want to marry her," Mr Singh said, remaining cool and composed.
Based on an identity card he carried with him, the police identified him as a student at the Dronacharya College of Engineering in Noida.
It was a repeat of Wednesday's drama, in which Mohammed Ashraf, an engineering student from Kerala, tried to enter Ms Mirza's house and threatened to commit suicide if her engagement was not cancelled.
Mr Ashraf, a resident of Manjeri in Malappuram, said he wanted to "propose" to Ms Mirza. He said he fell in love with her two years ago, when he watched her playing tennis in Bangalore.
The Banjara Hills Police charged Mr Ashraf with offences including trespass, criminal intimidation and uttering words or making gestures outraging the modesty of a woman. He was sent before a local court, which remanded him in custody for 14 days.Ajay Singh will also appear in court and be sent to the same jail where Mr Ashraf is lodged.
http://saniamirzaindiaspride.blogspot.com/
Posted by Picasa

Friday, July 10, 2009

Sania's lover ends in jail



















A young Indian man turned up at the home of tennis star Sania Mirza and threatened to kill himself if the tennis player did not marry him.
Mohammad Ashraf told Imran Mirza, Sania's father, that the tennis star could not marry anyone else as she "was born for me".
He also demanded that her engagement with family friend Sohrab Mirza, scheduled for Friday, be cancelled.
An alarmed Imran Mirza called the police who have taken him into custody.
He has been produced in court and remanded for a fortnight.
Mirza, 22, is one of the top ranking players. She ranks 85 in the world.
'Threatening'
In his complaint to the police, Mr Mirza says Mr Ashraf claims to be in love with the tennis star ever since he saw her playing a match in Bangalore two years ago.
Mr Mirza has also complained that the youth was sending text messages and making threatening calls to his daughter for some time.
Mr Ashraf arrived at Ms Mirza's home in Hyderabad city's upmarket home in Banjara Hills area on Tuesday evening accompanied by his friend Devadeesh Mohanty.

"How can you engage Sania to another person when she was born for me?" Mr Ashraf is reported to have asked the tennis player's father.
"He was threatening to commit suicide if Sania did not marry him," Mr Mirza told the police.
The two men have been arrested and have been charged with trespass and creating a nuisance.
Mr Ashraf has been identified as a civil engineer from Bangalore.Police say they have contacted Bangalore police to find out whether Mr Ashraf is mentally sound.
Posted by Picasa

Sania Mirza is seen during the first round match



http://saniamirzaindiaspride.blogspot.com

Sania Mirza is seen during the first round match against Germany's Anna-Lena Groenefeld, at the 2009 Wimbledon tennis championships.
Posted by Picasa

Anna-Lena Groenefeld vs Sania Mirza

http://saniamirzaindiaspride.blogspot.com/

Sania Mirza returns the ball to Anna-Lena Groenefeld of Germany at the Wimbledon tennis championships
Posted by Picasa

Sania Mirza reacts after losing a point


http://saniamirzaindiaspride.blogspot.com


Sania Mirza reacts after losing a point to Romania's Sorana Cirstea during their second round match in the 2009 Wimbledon tennis championships at the All England Club. Cirstea won
Posted by Picasa

Sania Mirza returns ball


http://saniamirzaindiaspride.blogspot.com

Sania Mirza returns a ball to Romanian number 28 seed Sorana Cirste at the All England Club. Mirza lost 6-4, 6-4 to tumble out of Wimbledon.
Posted by Picasa

Sania Mirza slips seven places

A second-round loss at the Wimbledon championships cost Sania Mirza seven places in the WTA singles ranking as the Indian slipped to 85 but maintained her 37th position in the doubles list.




A failed bid at Wimbledon also affected Somdev Devvarman’s and Prakash Amrittraj’s rankings as the former lost three places to be 132 and latter went down by five spots to be at 159.



Somdev had lost his first qualifying round and Prakash faltered in the third and final round.



Mahesh Bhupathi gained a place to be at eighth in the men’s doubles ranking courtesy a semifinal appearance at the All England Club and Leander Paes maintained his sixth position despite making a shock first round exit.

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Sania Mirza returns the ball during a first round match

http://saniamirzaindiaspride.blogspot.com

Sania Mirza returns the ball during a first round match against Germany's Anna-Lena Groenefeld at the All England Club. Mirza said she had to turn on the aggression to win her first round match at Wimbledon on Monday
Posted by Picasa

Leander Paes and Cara Black defeated Mahesh Bhupathi and Sania Mirza

Leander Paes and his partner Cara Black defeated Mahesh Bhupathi and Sania Mirza to advance to the mixed doubles quarterfinals of Wimbledon Championships in London.




Top seeded Paes and Zimbabwean Black won 6-2 6-7 (2) 6-3 in the two-hour-and-seven-minute third-round contest, which was the first between the two pairs, on Monday night.



Paes and Black, who won the US Open mixed doubles title last year, were clearly the better pair in a rare match and also took advantage of the unforced errors committed by their opponents.



Thirteenth seeds Bhupathi and Sania committed nine double faults as compared to just one by their opponents though the all-Indian pair sent down more number of aces (6 to 3).

Paes and Black got as many as eight break points in the first set out of which they converted two to win it in 35 minutes.

Wimbledon: Sania Mirza & Chia-Jung Chuang crash lands in second round

Already out of singles competition, Sania Mirza’s doubles campaign also ended after she and her partner Chia-Jung Chuang suffered a straight set loss to Alla Kudryavtseva and Monica Niculescu in the second round of the Wimbledon Championships here on Saturday.




The 15th seeded Indo-Taipei pair lost 2-6, 3-6 to the unseeded Russian-Romanian combination.



Sania and Chia had their chances but failed to grab on those. Out of seven break points they got they could convert just one and paid the price.



Sania’s singles campaign was cut short in the second round by her friend Sorana Cirstea.



The Indian would now look to put up a better show in the mixed doubles event as she has reached the second round with compatriot Mahesh Bhupathi.

Sania battles hard for victory

When she first arrived here — a starry-eyed little girl sporting a pony-tail, chaperoned by doting parents — to play in the girls’ singles championship all those years ago, Sania Mirza might have hardly imagined that the early part of her career as a professional tennis player would the play out the way it has — like a game of snakes and ladders.




In a few packed, emotionally-draining years since making a breakthrough at the Australian Open in January 2005, Sania, aged 22, has been through it all in a hurry — form slumps, a series of injuries, spectacular surges, controversies on and off the courts — and it is hardly a surprise that she often sounds like a world-weary veteran after being forced by circumstances to live her life in fast forward.

Annus horribilis



The year 2008 was something of an annus horribilis for Sania as she started the year at No.32 and ended it just inside the top 100, at 99. A first right wrist injury early in the year required surgery and forced her out of the game for several weeks. This was followed by another right wrist injury just before the Olympics.



In sport, as in life, sometimes it is necessary to plumb the depths to get a clear view of the way up. And Sania, still a long way from becoming the player she can be — the consistent winner that she wants to be in the process of discovering the limits of her own potential — did prove today that she is ready for the arduous task.



In a first round match of the 123rd Wimbledon tennis championships, on a cloudy, warm afternoon, Sania quickly overcame a mid-match slump as she beat Anna-Lena Groenefeld of Germany 6-2, 2-6, 6-2 to make her way to the second round.



After coming into the championship following her best tournament-run in a long, long time — a semifinal finish in the Aegon Classic on grass — the Indian star was unlikely to have been short on confidence. But after a dream start that saw her open up a 4-0 first set lead, Sania failed to impose herself on an opponent whose arsenal was mostly absent of heavy weaponry.



Then again, even if she blew hot and cold on the No.14 court where every single seat was taken and quite a few Indian fans had to crane their necks standing on the walkways to get a glimpse of the action, the woman from Hyderabad regrouped superbly after taking a break at the end of the second set.



Sania upped the ante on her serve, injected a strut into her court coverage and stepped in courageously for some rewarding fly-swatting on Anna-Lena’s second serves before finally blowing away her German opponent with an avalanche of blistering forehands.



Overall, it wasn’t the sort of performance that elicited a constant volley of Oohs and Aahs from the stands but it was a thoroughly professional demonstration of getting the job done on a big stage without too many missed heartbeats.



Last year, Sania, a bit rusty after coming in following a long injury-break, had failed to convert four matchpoints in the third set, losing to Martinez Sanchez, a qualifier in the second round.



This time, she plays Sorana Cirstea of Romania in the second round.



Not long after Sania returned to the locker room, the sport’s great summiteer got within six match victories of planting his Swiss flag on a peak no man has ever set foot on. Roger Federer, opening the proceedings on a brand new Centre Court in the absence of his friend and great rival Rafael Nadal, got past Yen-Hsun Lu from Chinese Taipei 7-5, 6-3, 6-2.



“Monday 1 p.m. It is a very privileged spot. Gets your heart beating, that’s for sure. He was a tough opponent,” said the five-time champion, after playing for the first time since winning a title — the French Open — that had long proved vanishingly elusive. “Rafa had dominated the championship (French) for so long. For me it was an unbelievable feeling,” said Federer.



Earlier in the day, Andreas Seppi of Italy upset James Blake (seeded 17) of the United States 7-5, 6-4, 7-6(5).



‘’This is something that has been my worst Slam, I don’t know why,” said a disappointed Blake. “Just didn’t feel like myself out there today.”

Wimbledon Tennis Championship:Sania Mirza and Chia-Jung Chuang in seconf round

India’s Sania Mirza and Chia-Jung Chuang of Chinese Taipei defeated American Jill Craybas and Carly Gullickson 6-4, 6-2 in the first round of the women’s doubles at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships here Thursday.The Indo-Chinese pair, seeded 15th, will next face Russian Alla Kudryavtseva and Romania’s Monica Niculescu, who beat Spaniard Lourdes Dominguez Lino and Arantxa Parra Santonja 7-5, 4-6, 6-1.




Sania and Chuang had difficulty in holding their service, and so had their opponents in the first set. Sania and Chuang dropped their serve twice, but broke their opponents thrice.



The American pair saved seven break points before Sania and Chuang broke them in the fourth game.



Craybas and Gullickson came back twice, but each time Sania and Chuang got back the lead and finally closed out the set in the 10th game.



Sania and Chuang were in full control in the second set and wrapped it up with two break of serves.

Wimbledon:Sorana Cirstea ends Sania Mirza’s singles campaign

Sania Mirza’s singles campaign at the Wimbledon championships ended with a 4-6 4-6 second round loss to Romanian 28th seed Sorana Cirstea here today.


Unforced errors proved costly for the Indian in the one-hour-22-minute contest as she yet again failed to move beyond the second round here.

Sania played mostly from the baseline but struggled to keep her booming strokes within the court.



The inability to win points on serve added to the woes of the unseeded Indian against an opponent ranked as high as 27th in the world.



Sania had the first opportunity to get a break but Cirstea denied her friend the favour.



Sania then committed a double fault in the fifth game to hand the Romanian a break chance.



Sania saved four breakpoints in that game but another double fault undid all the good work

Wimbledo:Sania Mirza’s lost her clothes

Sorana Cirstea and Sania Mirza are such good friends off the tennis court that when Mirza arrived at Wimbledon with a light suitcase she knew who to turn to for a supply of spare clothes.




Thus it was 19-year-old Cirstea’s kit that saw them both safely through to today’s second round of the women’s singles, where the two girls will face each other across the net.



Fortunately, the wardrobe issue has already been sorted out. Mirza, the 22-year-old from India who beat Germany’s Anna-Lena Groenefeld 6-2, 2-6, 6-2 in the first round, has been shopping. “I don’t need to borrow stuff from Sorana again,” she said.



Friendship now has to be put aside as she faces the Romanian 28th seed, who appeared out of nowhere to beat two top 10 players on the way to the quarter-finals at Roland Garros.



Mirza said: “We’re both professionals and we know where to draw the line.”

Sania to meet Groenefeld

In the Wimbledon ladies’ singles, India’s Sania Mirza has been drawn to play against Germany’s World No. 51 AnnaLena Groenefeld in the first round.


In doubles, Sania and her Taipei partner ChiaJung Chuang, seeded 15th, will take on the unseeded American pair of Jill Craybas and Carly Gullickson.