Koneru Humpy and Sania Mirza ::and the mathmetics of publicity

Koneru Humpy and Sania Mirza

This is an intresting write up where two players are compared .........both belong to same time .....both have their names recorded as first in indian sports .. and both are equally killing but still one face is recognised by billions and the other perhaps by only thousands .........what's wrong ??

Why government denied grants where it was most needed ??
The answer to this question lies in my earlier post "IS Y S R Reddy sincere about sania .......

Why the same media is dumb for the other ??
The answer to this question lies at http://shuuro.blogspot.com/ (which has been reproduced below) ........what is missing in ths article is that

publicity also depends in which area you excel .........Tennis has a huge following in Europe .......When we excel in areas where people in West have control we take pride ....This now comes naturally to people of sub continent ....When any one among them challenges the champions there people back home get confidence and want if they can replicate the success of their fellow ....
Our success in world cup in 1984 had rocketed the popularity of cricket ......If sania can acquire an attire of Top Tennis Player and stay there for long ...I bet next the big hit in Indian Sports is Tennis
The sale of Tennis rackets in hyderabad is a mild expression of it ..........

This is what media and sponsors Know's , and are throwing their wieghts behind Sania ......Chess already has our supremacy but still does not fantasize the minds of Indians .......
So Sania has economics standing behind her ..........Sorry for Koneru Humpy :the fundamenals of sponsorship does not stand behind her

The article goes ...........

I've been following Sania Mirza's modest success in tennis with some interest, she has certainly done country proud, specially when she won against Svetlana Kuznetsova in Dubai Open in march this year. At the same time, i'm perplexed at the publicity she receives, as it is not proportionate to her success and how media makes anything trivial about her as news (particularly in Deccan Chronicle, where a day doesn't go by without news item on her) and overstating her chances of success in a game. This makes me wonder, whether we don't know how to handle success which we achieve once in a while, so that we exaggerate things? or we don't have enough sports stars to write about or cheer for (other than cricketers)?. When i ask myself a basic question that why our people prefer tennis in the first place, as many of us give damn for our national sport kabadi! or for that matter any other sport (except cricket)?.

I think answers for these questions lies in the role of media and glamour of Sania in attracting masses to this game. Our yearning media has found someone, who is marketable with her glamour( also other factors) and who has modest success under her belt. Generally for a person to take interest in a new game, either the game should be appealing to him/her or they should have interest in someone, who participates in the game and for our people its the later case, since many people just follow only sania's games due to glamour and patriotism and doesn't have much interest in other tennis players or bother about news relating to the tennis world, for that matter most doesn't even know rules of the game. If one thinks that the glamour has nothing to do with her publicity & popularity, then they are wrong, we have many athletics and chess players who have achieved greater heights than sania in their respective sport, but there are in oblivion.

Media has created inflated image of her which will overshadow other deserving players as Koneru Humpy. Sania's world tennis ranking is 34 and Koneru Humpy is a women grand master with world ranking of 6 (in 2004 she was placed in 3rd place) and she has distinction of being first indian woman to achieve the Men's GM Title at age of 15 years, 1 Month, which in itself is a world record for Youngest-Ever Women to achieve the Men's GM Title. With so much talent she is starved of resources. Both the players are from the Andhra Pradesh state, Recently Humpy has made a appeal to the State government of Andhra Pradesh for their financial assistance, which she desperately needed to be trained for the world chess championships coming up early next year. But shockingly, state government has rejected her request and allocated 20 lakhs to Sania for her performance in the US Open and also decided to sponsor her visits abroad to participate in tournaments and her traveling coach John Farrington, where as already in last 3 months she had received total about 60 lakhs and housing plot from the state. Sania has corporate sponsor and earns lot of money through her endorsements and more over she has declared that she wouldn't be needing any financial support anymore. Let us suppose, if something of this kind is done to Sania would our media and public remain quite? perhaps no. People may view chess as a game where 2 persons push pieces of wood on 64 squares, this perspective could be changed, if our media promotes sports instead of individuals and stop exaggerating significance of reaching 4th round of a particular grand slam.

It is not the public who takes interest but it is the media who creates interest!.

Dollars US Federal Government made out of Sania

India’s ace tennis player Sania, has to pay tax to US Government on her prize money. India have entered into a double taxation treaty with several developed countries like the US and UK, and therefore Sania need not pay tax to India . Sania earned $70,000 ( appox. Rs 30 lakhs) for her pre quarter final appearance at the US Open. Of this, 35 per cent tax is deducted in tune with US tax laws and she gets only US $45,500 .

Total tax that Sania will pay is huge, her total earning is US$ 1,07,950, and tax @ 35 % is US $ 37,782.5. The details of the games played and prize money earned are as given below :

At US Open————— US $ 70,000 ,
At Acua Classic———US $ 12,775 ,
At Forest Hills———- US $ 12,000 ,
At Bank of West———-US $ 7,600 ,
At Cincinnati Open—- US $ 3,900 ,
At JP Morgan Classic– US $ 1,675

Is Y S Rajasekhara Reddy sincere about Sania

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy today announced Rs 20 lakh to tennis sensation Sania Mirza in recognition of her ''excellent performance'' in the US Open tennis championship in New York.

................This is another action at the government level that must raise the question ???

Rationale(On paper) behind such an action is : Government is sincere in promoting the sports and budding talents .The government recognises the talents and ensure that potential talents are not left behind in the scarcity of funds

The rational above demonstrate how public authorities justifies themselves .

Actual Rationale behind such an action : -Sania is a well known face now in india .People are tracking her actions and acheivments .Any grant or prize that she recieves is well covered in media and has a substantial numer of readers .Piggybacking on Sania they reach to such an audience .

Making grants to Koneru Humpy will not catch the eyes of masses ......so what the purpose of Y S Rajasekhara Reddy diverting money to her .............how good she may be what will he get ???(Laloo philosiophy !)

Our media covers such an action with fan fare without thought analysis arround it .Such news must be covered along with their proper analysis . A responsible media must focus in making its readers good critique .

A media that only covers such news is dumb .They are the unintelligent transmitters of information .An information that once received is not tranformed into Knowledgde .

Making wish the father of fact

This is an intresting article with a very subtle line "tendency to make wish the father of fact goes beyond tennis matches. "..........the article is the live demonstration of how our decision making ability is afected
by our illusions ......figure of 82% thinking out of the facts and going wrong is substantial .....

The article uses Sania as an illustration to challenge statments like " India is already a major force to be reckoned with" and warns against the possible premature triumphalism


In a TV poll conducted hours before Sania Mirza's fourth round match against Maria Sharapova in the US Open, a full 82 per cent of those taking part in the poll predicted a Mirza victory. In another poll, 55 per cent felt Sharapova would be under greater pressure than Mirza.

The score for the one-sided match that followed may have been unfair to Mirza, but there was little doubt that it was an unequal contest, and at no stage did anything other than a Sharapova win look likely. Yet, large numbers in India had convinced themselves that a Mirza win was on the cards.

This is not a column about sport. The poll on Mirza's chances is relevant because the tendency to make wish the father of fact goes beyond tennis matches. For instance, the easy assumption by many people today is that the 2003 BRICs report by Goldman Sachs has pre-ordained India's destiny as one of the great economic powers of the 21st century.

Indeed, some would argue that India is already a major force to be reckoned with. This, unfortunately, is at the same level of wishful thinking as the 82 per cent who forecast a Sania Mirza victory.

Like Mirza, India has the potential to achieve greatness. And just as Mirza has to work hard at improving her serve and her mobility on court, and reducing the errors in her ground strokes, India has many things to do before it can hope to be among the front-ranking economic powers.

The inescapable fact is that even today India accounts for only 2 per cent of the world's GDP, less than 1 per cent of world trade, less than 1 per cent of global investment flows and an even smaller share of global technology breakthroughs - with 16 per cent of the world's people

While it is good to be optimistic and to be conscious about the country's latent potential, and indeed to capitalise on recent positive trends, it would be dangerous to get into the mindset that says we have already arrived.

The distance to be covered between today's reality and tomorrow's potential was emphasised in bold relief this last week, with the release of UNDP's latest Human Development Report. At a rank of 127, India is still among the laggards. And despite the front-ranking rate of 7 per cent economic growth, we are making precious little progress in education, health care, sanitation and other elements of social infrastructure.

Most other international rankings also show India in a poor light, whether it is the World Economic Forum's competitiveness report, or Transparency International's corruption perception index. In none of them do we matchSania Mirza's global rank of 42, and she to her credit is likely to move up the numbers ladder faster than the country.

The problem with celebrating too early - and there are many elements in both the political and media worlds that have made a religion of premature triumphalism - is that we ignore the hard work that has to be done today, and the tough decisions that have to be taken.

To the credit of the UPA government, it has posed questions on basic issues to do with employment and education, empowerment and social security. The problem, of course, is not with the questions but with some of the UPA's answers.

The even bigger problem is that some other questions are not being asked - about the continuing mess in power, the other constraints imposed by India's physical infrastructure, the unfinished and perhaps abandoned task of fiscal correction, the absence of reform in agriculture, and much else. And when questions are not even asked, there are, of course, no answers.

If one can look for other parallels in the world of sport, it would be the Indian cricket team - full of individual stars, and full of potential, but without the organising ability to mount the sustained team effort and consistent performance that wins tournaments.

Pray that does not become the fate of the Indian economy - where we celebrate individual success while the team as a whole fails to perform.

Maria Sharapova

Sanialogy

SIDDHARTHA MISHRA
TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 07, 2005


Ach mein Gott! 'Oh my God!' in German Usage: Prahlad Kakkar (ad man) — "In India, you're either a goddess or shit. Sania’s a goddess." Ach mein

Gott!lawesomeness: Better than awesome Usage: Alyque Padamsee (ad man) — "Sania’s the most sassy sportsperson on the Indian scene today." That's awesomeness.

Bam: A person that must be worshipped Usage: Angad Bedi (TV show host) — "Sania makes me a proud Indian." Bam... that's her.

cawinky-dink: Great coincidence Usage: Alyque: "Good looks, good skills, great attitude." Whadda cawinky-dink!

duff: hot Usage: Anirban Das (brand builder) — "Sania’s the third most clicked female player after Sharapova and Serena." Comes with being truly doff

duff: hot Usage: Anirban Das (brand builder) — "Sania’s the third most clicked female player after Sharapova and Serena." Comes with being truly doff.


emo: Short for emotion Usage: Anirban — "She’s not someone you remember when you switch on the TV and forget when you switch it off." That's just a demo of her emo.

F4: destined to lead the world Usage: Alyque — "She’ll have a far bigger following than Sharapova can ever dream of." Press F4. for real real: 'For real' emphasised

Usage: Armaana Sodhi (model) — "She gives out positive vibes that make you want to go, get it. You connect." She's for real real.

go-to: Someone you depend on Usage: Sofiya Azad (student) — "She’s no bimbo. That’s why she performs so consistently." Way to go, go-to girl!

gsr: Good significant response Usage: Anirban — "Sania’s marketability is unprecedented bar Sachin." That’s a gsr.

irregardless: Since the prefix 'ir' and the suffx 'less'both mean 'not or with', they cancel each other out, so you get ‘regard’ Usage: Freddie Birdie (ad man) — "Sania’s an interesting phenomenon. We're starved of icons, she's one." irregardless.

Kid A: To completely reinvent style Usage: Alyque — "Sachin has a nice-guy image, Amitabh has ..dignity, Shah Rukh has charisma. None of them has the pizzazz or vibrancy that Sania has." She’s Kid A.

M.A.G.I.C.: Most Attractive Girl In Class Usage: Alyque — "She'll become a bigger brand than the Williams sisters. Sania's better looking anyday!" That’s M.A.G.I.C.!

P.Y.B.O.: Put Your Balls On! Just do it! Usage: Piyush Pandey (ad man) — "Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Sania’s brave enough to experiment." P.Y.B.O. Like her.

shinda shima: Cool person Usage: Sofia — "People are famous for various reasons. Sania is famous for never giving up." So shinda shima!

silks: Item of great worth Usage: Bipasha Basu (actress) — "She's heading a country in her way. She has the ability to reach out." Silksy!

smft: So much for that Usage: Anirban — "Tennis is the priority. We might take up just one more deal over the five ads Sania has." smft.

tarantism: Urge to be funky Usage: Alyque: "There’s a sassy attitude... there’s so much vibrancy, life in Sania... it's unique." It's tarantism.

Uber-Micro: Pro-game talk for skills Usage: Angad — "She, a girl, has shown that we, Indians, seen to be weak, are capable of power play." Uber-Micro's taken her there.

V8: A kick-ass engine showing how inefficient earlier engines were Usage: Ayaan Ali Bangash (sarod artiste) — "With due respect to Leander and Mahesh,

Sania’s taken tennis to another level. People in NY are talking about her." V8 hai naa. lwomyn: Variation 'woman' used to show how offensive the word 'man' can be Usage: Ayaan — "She’s an example for all."

(Words sourced from urbandictionary.com)

Right in her garden

Sania :a lesson of self-confidence

Self -confidence is prime lesson that goes out of every Motivation Guru ........but the live display of self -confidence is best in sports world ..........Sania Mirza ,Andre Agassi , Virender sehwag to the whole Australian team are living symbols of self-confidence.........

While self confidence is what prompts this write up .......At one point this article becomes very learning vis a vis our criticsm .......we often do immature cricism without realising the root cause of the problem .One citation here shall help us to weigh the maturity of our own cricism ...........


Your Own Biggest Supporter

Every sportsperson has fans, supporters, folks who believe in them. Folks who would fight for them in a coffee-break argument. Folks who will root for them even when the odds are completely stacked against them. Folks who will believe they can fight back even when the situation looks almost impossible.

There are some sportsmen who support themselves, believe in themselves, and back themselves, more than even their most ardent supporters. It is these sportspersons who often script history way beyond what a simple scoreline can narrate.

Andre Agassi is one such player. Today as I left home, the score read 6-3, 6-3 in flavour of Blake. I had watched the second set and Agassi seemed hopelessly outclassed. All indicators pointed towards a 3-set rout. At that point, not even Agassi's biggest supporters would have predicted a turn-around. Not even Steffi, not even Jaden would have realistically thought that Agassi could pull it off. But that did not matter. The only person whose belief mattered was Agassi himself. And he possessed it in full measure. It was this self-belief which floored James Blake as he crashed out of the US Open after a heart-wrenching five-set defeat.


Sania Mirza, who is being criticised by every Tom, Dick and Haribhai for her unforced errors, weak backhand and patchy serve, also possesses this very self-belief. That is the reason she has defied all expectations this year and reached where no one expected her to reach.

This self-belief is not necessarily a conscious though process. It does not mean that Agassi consciously kept saying to himself "I can still win this". It just becomes a part of their sporting DNA, and their game. Their game shows no symptoms of being bogged down or influenced by the situation.

The Australian team also typifies this self-belief. Even when they lose as we saw in this Ashes series, or in Chennai in 2001, they do so believeing they can win till the last ball.

Another person who possesses a similar self-belief is this blog's favourite sportsperson - Virender Sehwag. Some folks call it his foolhardiness. They say he is too impetuous, too rash, too impulsive. Yet they don't realise that all this comes out of a tremendous self-belief.

Last month, everyone criticised Sehwag for getting out to Vaas in the finals of the Indian Oil Cup in Sri Lanka. Everyone said, giving Sehwag an unsolicited lesson in cricketing wisdom, you had already scored 24 runs off Lokuhettige in the previous over. What was the need to attack Vaas? While Sehwag's dismissal deserves criticism, this is the wrong thing to say. the right criticism, spoken in Sehwag's language would have been - the ball was pitched at an uncomfortable length, and you had no width at all. Why did you play that particular shot?

What is the difference in the two criticisms? The second one is entirely independent of who was bowling. So what if it was Vaas? Sehwag does not look at the name of the bowler. He looks at the ball and then he plays it. Tell him "Give respect to a Vaas delivery because Vaas deserves respect" and Sehwag will snort at the suggestion. Tell him to respect the delivery because of its merits and he will do it.

This self-belief, which does not recognise extraneous factors like your opponent's reputation, the low probability of you succeeding, etc, is what makes several sportsmen perform exceeding all expectations. Remember the last over of the fourth day of the 2004 Chennai test against Australia. Last over of the day. Glenn McGrath running in to bowl. India needed 200-odd to win with a whole day remaining.

Conventional wisdom would have advised Sehwag - this is the situation, and this is the reputation of Mcgrath. Play out the over. What happened instead was Sehwag played each ball according to its merits, and ended up hitting Mcgrath for three boundaries in the last over

As the two teams walked off the field, it was Mcgrath who looked distraught, and it was India who had their tails up.

Be it Agassi, Sehwag, Mirza, Australia, Ivanisevic, Dravid, Schumacher.... what makes all these people so special is this very self belief, which makes them their own biggest supporter.

Homely Sania

Sania's Birth details.......

15 November 198611:28 AMMumbai (Bombay), India
Ms. Naseena Mirza - Sania's mother was kind enough to give me her birth time. The correct time of her birth is 14:30 Hrs.

Sania Mirza
Date: November 15, 1986
Time: 14:30:00
Time Zone: 5:30:00 (East of GMT)
Place: 72 E 50' 00", 18 N 58' 00"
Mumbai, India
Lunar Yr-Mo: Kshaya - Karthika
Tithi: Sukla Chaturdasi (Ve) (5.45% left)
Vedic Weekday: Saturday (Sa)
Nakshatra: Bharani (Ve) (77.17% left)
Yoga: Vyatipata (Ra) (9.42% left)
Karana: Vanija (Ve) (10.91% left)
Hora Lord: Saturn (5 min sign: Li)
Mahakala Hora: Saturn (5 min sign: Sg)
Kaala Lord: Jupiter (Mahakala: Jupiter)
Sunrise: 6:49:24
Sunset: 17:56:52
Janma Ghatis: 19.1916
Ayanamsa: 23-40-19.52

Things to learn from Sania

1. Being aggressive pays
2. Determination
3. The fighting spirit
4. Armed with oodles of positive thinking, Mirza manages to exemplify the all-American ethos of fighting spirit
5. Winning or losing – Mirza's got attitude, in fact loads of it.
6. Distinctive personality - Her tee-shirts leave a distinct impression thanks to the inscriptions on them

Perceptions and the reality

Perceptions and reality is not directly on Sania .........but it's written by someone whose thoughts i do value ..........

In the recent and contemporary indian history, bollywood and cricket have been the major suppliers of icons to the "hero" starved indian populace.With politician been totally pre-empted from this privelege,not because of the excellence of the other but because of total disenchantment of the public with the polity, young and old alike.The refresh rate of the glamour industry increasing by the day, this place has been primarily grabbed by sportpersons.

Among other reasons for almost obscene popularity of cricket in india,one is that Indians as a society as well as individuals have never been great supporters of individual excellence. The reasons for it are more of evolutionary then comtemporary.The irony is that the individual performer is always expected to perform in a team, by his teammates as well as the audience.Failure is regarded as betrayal by the team as well the audience.

Of Late things seem to be changing.The pointer is obviously towards the meteoric rise of indian men/women in individual sports.The reportcard has become so varied suddenly that keeping tab on developments in each is becoming difficult.These are the individuals who have carved out a niche for themselves with minimal or no government support.The good thing is that they are playing with consistency.

The sports as varied as formula one, shooting , lawn tennis, Golf etal.These are the sports where we have seen only white men playing and winning.Few years back it would have been no more than a dream to see Indians making big in these individual sports.But now everybody expects these people to win.

The good thing with individual sport is that if a player wins its the victory of the nation, but if he/she looses they are just left alone.The entire blame lies with the player and still no one is complaining frantically.

These individuals represent the new indian youngster,who is not bothered of his/her pedigree.Everything they do on and off th field is done with confidence with no strings of identity attached.As they make a mark globally, they are aware of their roots and are not ashamed of it.

So when narain karthikeyan zooms past the pole or sania mirza hits an ace, its not only an indian playing for their country but they are individuals who represent excellence in an otherwise ordinary life.

That essential "Killer's Instinct" may still be elusive, but who care's till this supply of "icons" continues.

Sania no flash in the pan

I found this article intresting at the point when the author comes to the colonial history of the sub-continent and analyse our tortured history as the cause behind the weak mindset of Indian Sports professionals ......


Prognosticating in sport is a risky business at best; most often it turns out to have been quite foolhardy. When you're an armchair analyst such as myself, you may as well be writing your suicide note. I'll venture recklessly nevertheless - I think Sania Mirza's game has quite a few ingredients to make it to the top ten; more importantly, she has the mind set to become a top player.


It is not easy for people from the subcontinent to compete and win at the highest levels even when they have the skills to do so - god knows there aren't many blessed with those skills. It's not just opponents they must overcome, they have to first convince themselves that they belong on the world stage - our tortured colonial history makes that quite an ordeal. Fortunately for Mirza, she has come on at a time when our nation is starting to stand up; on occasion, we even dare to hold our heads up high! To use a favoured expression of the former The Hindu cricket correspondent R Mohan, she is a 'creature of the age'. It is perhaps no coincidence at all that Sania has emerged at this potentially momentous time (may be I'm just gloating too much!). Much is made of Sania being a Muslim girl having to break more glass ceilings than would be otherwise par for course - those who think so do not quite understand the paradox that India is! Who does?

Well, to get back to the tennis, it is clear what parts of Sania's game will win her games - her forehand, her pluck and solid ground-strokes from both flanks - and what parts will not - the serve and the unforced errors. As is wont to happen when one goes for broke, the unforced errors keep coming from Sania's racquet as frequently as one liners from Shaquille O'Neal in an NBA season. The errors, however, can be ironed out by putting in more work in practice. The serve is likely to be far trickier to fix. If something is not done about it, she's likely to be blown off by the top players. But it wasn't as if she was blown away by Sharapova last night, far from it. In fact, at times her forehand threatened to do exactly that to the Russian and that is no mean feat. Although she was eventually shown her place in the grand slam scheme of things, she had already made history. Now she has to do the harder yards.

i found it at ....http://blockhole.blogspot.com/2005/09/sania-no-flash-in-pan.html

jab log bina jane likhte hei......

When People write just for testing their writting skills ........

This article is a comment more on Indian Sports professionals rather than on Sania ..........Sania differentiates herself form other Indian Sportspersons in being mentally tough ........and not freezing up in big games .

This is the perfect example to understand why we should go and read only authenticated articles ...........

janab ne bina Sania Ka match dekhe hi likh diya hei ........aur kamal hei ki editor ne pass bhi kar

diya ........intresting combination .

Sania Myth-za

........just think if articles like the one given below have any truth and helps u break the perception of a personality grown out of a media hype


Tuesday, September 06, 2005

Sania Myth-za

There was a lot of media attention and hype on Sania Mirza playing Maria Sharapova in the fourth round of the US Open 2005. Now lets get straight to the point and demolish some myths.

Firstly, SM is no quality player. She has a poor overall game and very low fitness levels. That she made it to the fourth round is only due to the fact that the opponents were even worse off. Since they come from other countries, it doesnt mean they have a quality game.

SM is brash and is more interested in media attention with her corny T-shirts and stupid statements (where every second word is "you-know") . She tries her very best to speak in an American accent. Her only regret, probably is that she is Indian (surprising , right ? ). Back on home soil - her main efforts go behind bagging lucarative endorsment contracts. Just today its been reported that old SM commands a price thats only lower than the now-old-and-battered Tendulkar. Tennis is obviously the last thing on her mind. Maybe Bollywood and South Indian B-Grade flicks to follow.

Lets get it straight - the only Indian player that has India written all over him is Leander Paes.

Keep in mind - SM is not playing for India or representing India. She is a private who has got to this stage since her family and supporters could shell out the obscene amount of dollars required to stay alive on the international tennis circuit. And if you hang on there with this kind of cash, you ought to win a game or two - excatly what she is doing.

In the past, more talented players from India could never make it - for they didnt have access to this dollar-bin.

SM makes it a point to flash her religon. Praying five times a day etc. types of statements to grab media attention. I mean what has your religon got to do with a game. Keep them apart. Not to be left out are the Mauvis and Muzzeins from India who have praised her efforts and have also lashed out at her wearing those skimpy 5 cm. long skirts. Next time you will probably not recognize old SM on court - she'd be all in the black suit.

To come are felicitations from Sonia Gandhi and Gulam Nabi Azad. And lastly, in a few months expect to see Sania Mirza standing for the Hyderabad constitueincy on a Congress ticket. Play the minority card - its the only thing that makes you a winner in India.

The numbers justify your moves.

This write up is at http://wgfa.blogspot.com/2005/09/sania-myth-za.html

When i had a slight conversation with Times Sports .........

Today i found to have made a slight conversation with Times Sports .

It all started yesterday when i spotted a wonderful performance by Kaif had a second place in Times Sport and Sania Mirza had grabbed the top story of the daily .This prompted me to raise a question "Does TOI represent the changing landscape of Indian Sports ".........more vividly Is it the start of Women Tennis era in Indian Sports ?

The question was timely and grabbed the attention of Times sports editorial .

Today when i wake up and had a glance on the TimesSports i found Times Sports had made it a point to answer that question ........

They answer me in two ways ...

First by pushing Sania back on the second page despite the much hyped Sania vs Maria Sharapova clash today .

Second one was very direct .It was thoughtfully answered and skillfully analysed by Bobilli Vijay Kumar of Times Network .

In his Between The Lies Bobilli Vijay Kumar wrote

Something like this has not happened in a long , long time : the indian cricket team chased down almost 280 runs for a fabulous victory but was still not the top sports story of the day .Could this be the percusor to a paradigm shift in Indian sport?...............

This is where he made a direct point from what i had said in http://saniamirza.blogspot.com ............

My observation on the Times front page really suprised me ........In a nation where Men's Cricket fatasize the majority of sports lovers ........Women Tennis had grabbed more than two-third of the space ....and only a quarter of the space was left for Men's Cricket

After his complete analysis Bobilli Vijay Kumar wrote ............
The day the gap between her winners and unforced errors reduces,or even better , enters positive territory,she will become a Top-tenner, a force to reckon with .That moment , cricket, or at least India's cricketer's , will lose their pre-eminent positions to Sania Mirza. Maybe , that day is not too far away .

Sania and the great indian hope

This artice was published in Times Sports ..........i am convinced this article was in direct response to my blog "Does TOI represent the changing Landscape of Indian Sports"

Between the Lies
By Bobilli Vijay Kumar

Something like this has not happened in a long , long time : the indian cricket team chased down almost 280 runs for a fabulous victory but was still not the top sports story of the day .
Could this be the percusor to a paradigm shift in Indian sport?Or is it just another pointer that Sania Mirza has well and spunkily arrived ,gliding on her sizzling forehands?
We don't know yet ;what we know ,though is she is going to play the top seed of the US Open and yet the entire country is excited .Normally, we would have groaned and exclaimed ," Poor Ramesh , Poor Leander "and got on with our lives .
This time ,though ,everybody is looking forward to the beautiful clash .Maria Sharapova will , in all probability,blow away sania with just her grunts .But somewhere , deep in many Indian hearts, a tiny flicker of hope is desperately trying to rise , to become a crescendo .
At the start of the year , of course , nobody would have given her even a ghost of a chance ;today ,that ghost is taking shape , and some feel,or at least hope ,that it will take the contours of a miracle .
You don't need to watch Sania on court to see the fire in her belly ; you don't have to hear her at press conferences to visualise the storm in her heart .Her full success story is ,in fact, hidden in her stats : 102 winners to 150 unforced errors (in her last three matches ).
She clearly loves to live dangerously: She goes for her shots from start, middle to finish . Every stroke is either a winner or an unforced error ; there's no middle path for the intrpid .She aims for the lines and ends up getting the jugular.
She may have jumped over 150 ranks to 42 in a year ; but she has gone much higher in the space of the last three matches . In the beginning,she was a true - blue bseliner,glued to the back of the court; now she has started rushing towardsthe net ,sniffing for those volleys and suddenly those rallies are finishing far more easily and quickly.
Overyears , India's sportspersons have acquired the reputation of being soft, of being short on killer instinct.They have also been accused of freezing on the big stages.Sania is not like them :she revels on the big stages ;she plays the big points with a bigger heart . Yes she makes but she does't get intimidated by them .Some time in the future ,she will surely learn to reduce those mistakes. The day the gap between her winners and unforced errors reduces,or even better , enters positive territory,she will become a Top-tenner, a force to reckon with .
That moment , cricket, or at least India's cricketer's , will lose their pre-eminent positions to Sania Mirza. Maybe , that day is not too far away .

What she did not said straight...........

"Well-behaved women rarely make history." - Wimbledon 2005
.............i link it to her style oriented presentation of herself !

"I'm cute? No shit" - US Open 2005
-------i link it to a lot of slippery talks regarding her !..........THIS WAS A VERY INTENTIONALLY
WORN STATMENT

"You can either agree with me, or be wrong." - US Open 2005
-------i link it to her aggresiveness and the sustential presence she is going to have in the World of tennis

Does TOI represent the changing landscape of Indian Sports

Yesterday was amazing day for Indian Sports .It was the day when there was a fight between Indian cricket and Indian Tennis to grab the space for Times Sports of TOI, popular indian national daily .

At one side was the heroic performance by an indian cricketer (Kaif) to ensure India's entry in the finals and at the other end was a phenomenal performance by the fast rising Indian Tennis player Sania Mirza.to enter in the fourth round of US Open .

Both were big news and had .their due on Times Sports and it was the Times editorial to decide which news has more readers than the others.

My observation on the Times front page really suprised me ........In a nation where Men's Cricket fatasize the majority of sports lovers ........Women Tennis had grabbed more than two-third of the space ....and only a quarter of the space was left for Men's Cricket

This is not normal in india and the force behind this abnormal behaviour of Indian Media is none other but Sania Mirza

.......SHE IS TOUGH........JUST WATCH HER ........SHE IS CHANGING THE LANDSCAPE OF INDIAN SPORTS FOR EVER....