[Misa] Different Paths to the Same Point
from: AO Official Web
Different Paths to the Same Point
by Luke Buttigieg
Thursday, 19 January, 2006
As relative unknowns in the tennis world 12 months ago, Sania Mirza and
Michaella Krajicek both made big strides forward in 2005, and their clash in
the second-round on Day Four of Australian Open 2006 provided an interesting
contrast in the way players are introduced to the game.
The younger sister of 1996 Wimbledon men's singles champion Richard,
17-year-old Krajicek first picked up a racquet at the age of three under the
guidance of father Petr - who is her coach - and mother Paulina.
And with Richard already 21 years of age and on the professional circuit by
that stage, it is easy to see where the world No.43 - who began 2005 ranked
429th - drew a lot of her inspiration and aspirations for a similar career as
she grew up.
But Mirza's is a different story. The 19-year-old who was born in Mumbai and
took up the game as a six-year-old with encouragement from her father Imran,
who is a builder, and mother Naseema, who works at a printing company.
There have been several male Indian players who have had success over the
years, with Ramanathan Krishnan (1954), his son Ramesh (1979) and Leander
Paes (1990) all winning junior singles titles at Wimbledon.
Vijay Amritaj and later Ramesh Krishnan were both also quarter-finalists at
Wimbledon and the US Open, and Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi achieved the No.1
doubles ranking together in 1999, when they reached all four Grand Slam
doubles finals and won the Wimbledon and US Open crowns.
But Mirza created Indian tennis history last year when, as a wildcard, she
reached the third-round at Melbourne Park. Nirupama Vidyanathan was the only
Indian woman before her to have even competed at a Grand Slam tournament.
Mirza went on to become the first Indian women to win a singles title, at
Hyderabad, lost in the final in Forest Hills and climbed into the world's top
50, earning herself the No.32 seeding at Australian Open 2006 in the process.
And while it comes as little surprise that Krajicek has joined the WTA Tour -
and last year reached the second-round in Melbourne as a qualifier - Mirza is
continuing to make her mark despite where she grew up and having discovered a
talent for tennis by chance.
"I just used to play all the sports like swimming, and I used to play
badminton, my parents just wanted their child to play a sport - probably not
this professionally," Mirza said after Krajicek had beaten her 6-3 7-5.
"But I think after a month or so after I started playing tennis the coach
called my parents up and said maybe you should come and have a look at her.
"I guess at six you don't know what you're going to do or what you want to do
but my parents thought maybe I was more talented at tennis than I was at the
other sports and they told me I could take it a bit seriously."
Admitting that a lack of match practice had contributed to her loss - having
played just one match while Krajicek won the Moorilla International last week
- Mirza is also delighted that players coming through these days have a
better chance of progressing to the top level.
"It's harder to come out from countries like India that first of all don't
have a tradition of tennis and secondly don't have the facilities for the
sport," she added.
"I think players right now who are six, seven, eight-year-olds, who are going
to pick up tennis racquets, it's going to be so much better for them because
we're getting the facilities, having the tennis courts, people at least know
what tennis is, when I started people didn't."
Both are tipped to be future stars of the game and if Mirza and Krajicek can
take further steps forward in 2006 like the ones they took last season, in 12
months time they could find themselves clashing much later in tournaments
like the Australian Open than they did this time around.
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