Movers, Shakers and Noise-Makers of the Week

I’ve been a tennis fan for as long as I can remember, but what’s noteworthy is I remember the match that would forever label me a tennis fanatic.

In the 1987 Wimbledon final, as a teenager, when I watched Martina Navratilova beat Steffi Graf 7-5, 6-3 on a public television at a TV store somewhere in a suburb of the now well-known city, Bombay, India, my appreciation for the sport had scaled new heights. Now more than 2 decades later, I have to admit, although I follow the ATP and WTA tours, I am definitely more passionate (and sometimes even emotional) about women’s tennis.

In an age when real-time information is on the brink of becoming a reality, I think we’re lucky that we can follow the sport a lot more closely than was possible even as recently as 5 years ago. I mean, if astronauts can post messages on twitter from outer space, what’s a little live-tweeting during a tennis match, you might ask. Well, it is everything to us die-hard fans. There isn’t nearly as much coverage on television, live streams are few and far in between and if you’re like me, whenever you know a really good match is in action, you wish you had the power to teleport yourself.

While scientists and physicists are working tirelessly to solve the teleportation puzzle, the tennis fans community will have to look to each other to share everything that’s happening on all the courts around the world. That’s what I am attempting to do via this blog post.

On a full-moon Wednesday night, the featured match of the LA Women’s Tennis Open was scheduled to get underway at 7:00pm – Maria Sharapova v/s Victoria Azarenka. That matchup itself is enough to make anyone drop what they’re doing and head over to the Home Depot Center in Carson, CA. In my case, it wasn’t as easy as dropping what I was doing. I was scheduled to be out of town, returning back to LA around 8pm. If I was lucky enough to get on an earlier flight, I probably would’ve made it to the latter part of the match. I remember praying to be able to watch this match. And as luck (or destiny in this case) would have it, I didn’t make it out of town and to add the proverbial cherry on the frosting, I was able to get a courtside ticket to the night session.

That said, as the match was about to begin, I was receiving text messages from a few friends, which made me realize that I am extremely fortunate to be at this match – no television coverage, perhaps no live streams at such an early stage of a tournament (it was ONLY the second round). It hadn’t even begun and I could sense it was going to be a good one. I was live tweeting during the match to share some moments with my twitter followers, but after the match, I walked away thinking, this match would be one of the most (or top 3) talked about matches leading into the US Open – it was most definitely the match of the week.

And had it received more coverage, I’m sure it would have converted some young tennis fans into fanatics (as I was in 1987). So, here are some highlights – The Matchup: Maria Sharapova, the 22 yr old, 6’2″ Russian former World No. 1, 3-time grand slam winner, currently ranked outside the top 50 was taking on Victoria Azarenka (Vika to her fans), the 20 yr old, 5’11″ Belarusian, currently ranked in the top 10, with the potential to get to the top if she can get past players with the last name Williams. Wait, she did beat Serena Williams earlier this year.

For now, it may be her only claim to fame, but she has the game and the time to break into the top 3 for sure. What else made this match up interesting is that the two have similar plays – both right-handed with the two-handed back-hand. And they hit hard – it’s tough to keep sight of the ball with these two on court. In sports we seldom hear about budding friendships, but there’s always a lot of hype around the budding rivalries. For quite some time, the Sharapova/Azarenka rivalry has been one of the anticipated rivalries in women’s tennis by pros and fans.

For all these reasons and more, at 7:00pm on Wednesday night when Maria and Vika walked out on Stadium court at Home Depot center, the crowd rose to its feet with loud applause for both players and off went the flash photography too. As the match started, it was hard to say whether it was louder on court or in the stands. You know, with both of them being among the top grunters in women’s tennis as well! C’mon, did you think I would write about a women’s match without mentioning the word “grunt”? At this time, it’s almost insignificant to report on how the match progressed score-wise, because we’ve probably read it on the many articles already.

But to put it in perspective, it was very very close. Both players matched and occasionally outmatched each other in every department – hard hitting ground strokes, high serve percentages, close line calls, electronic review system over-ruling calls in their favor, having to deal with crying babies in the middle of service points, on-court coaching, and also the grunting & shrieking. The match started with neither player holding serve for the first 5 games. So technically, we were on serve until the 4-5 service game when Vika for broken to level the match 5-5 and Maria then held to go up 6-5.

At this time, Vika’s coach was on court and while Maria had her chances in the following game, Vika was able to push it to a tiebreaker which she eventually won (7-4). At the changeover following the first set, Maria had her coach on court and she started off the second set leading 3-0. However some untimely double-faults and serve trouble brought Vika right into it. However, when it mattered most (serving at 3-4 down), the gritty Maria made an appearance and she took the 2nd set 6-4. It was around 9:15pm and fans were getting their money’s worth.

Everyone knew they had a long night ahead of them. At this time, the cash registers at the food court were working overtime too, as the popcorn and pizza were getting refilled. And thus began the nervous third set – more nerve wrecking for fans than the players. It was déjà-vu as Maria quickly jumped to a 3-0 lead and then got immediately broken. She was still up 3-2. Although, at times because of the quality of strokes in the long rallies it was tough to cheer for either player, Maria was clearly the crowd favorite.

Now it was loud everywhere – on court, the grunting had manifested into some long shrieks and “C’mons” by both players and with every point, the crowd was pulling for Maria. And as the score indicated, Maria dug deep, stayed focused and Vika did not win another game. At 9:52pm, Maria Sharapova had prevailed over the 3rd seed at this tournament 6-7(4), 6-4, 6-2.

Currently the tournament is in the semi-final stages. Maria is still alive. To keep things interesting, Italian Flavia Pennetta will be taking on Maria Sharapova. And in the other semi-final it will be Australian Sam Stosur taking on young Romanian Sorana Cirstea who beat Caroline Wozniacki in a thrilling third set tiebreak on Wednesday night as well. She backed it up by defeating young German, Sabine Lisicki. All of us tennis fans are probably already imagining Maria lifting up the trophy on Sunday. But again, this is tennis – anything can happen.

She still has to go out and play every point, every game, every set and every match. And in the process, we’re the ones in for a treat and hopefully more memorable matches to talk and write about. If you’ve made it to this point, hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed sharing it. I would love to hear comments/feedback. And maybe we can share what was the match that converted us from tennis fans to fanatics!! Enjoy the rest of the tournament and the US Open Series.

Nina Shah is based in Los Angeles, CA. An engineer by profession, she is a technology consultant for many Web/Internet companies. However, she maintains that’s only a minor detail about her. She is an avid sports fan, especially tennis, which she jokes she’s fanatic about. This fact is confirmed by her friends and co-workers who’ve heard her provide analogies to tennis and coaching in the context of business. She watches as much live tennis as she can pack into her schedule and is looking for a personal tennis coach in the LA area to play the sport she’s such a fan of. Any takers? You can reach Nina at nrs1411@yahoo.com or follow her on twitter.com/datamaverick.