Published on Apr 25, 2004
Courtesy : Hindustantimes
By S Kannan  

It would be tempting to have a dig at the Indians for losing 0-2 to top seed Thailand on Saturday in the play-offs at the Fed Cup Asia Oceania Zone Group I Tennis qualifiers, but be sure this was a creditable over-all performance by the hosts.

On a night when second seeds Indonesia beat New Zealand 2-1 in dramatic fashion, one did feel the Indians had achieved as much as they could have hoped for.

This week, the focus was on Ankita Bhambri and Sania Mirza in a competition where the quality of opposition was strong. But one thing is for sure, both these girls are still juniors and the fact they could keep India in the Asia-Oceania Group 1 is in itself a creditable achievement.

Sania Mirza, for whom the responsibility of playing not just singles but doubles as well, was quite big and she leaved up to the expectations playing as well as she could have.

Yet, on Saturday, the cherubic Hyderbadi's consistency was missing which resulted in her losing 6-7 (3/7), 1-6 to Suchanan Viratprasert in the first singles.

There is no doubt, vis a vis WTA rankings, that lithe Suchanan (234) was the favourite.

However, Suchanan was in trouble early on in her own service games but escaped as Sania was unable to make full use of it. Suchanan faced break points in two successive games but Sania failed to capitalise.

That was the sole reason why Sania lost steam on an evening when she played tennis which looked sublime at one moment and then bordered on the ridicule. If at one moment Sania was smacking winners into the corners, the next moment she was a bundle of errors.

But, then, as coach Enrico Piperno was to say later, “This is the first time Sania is actually spearheading our challenge in Group I. I think we did very well considering the fact we were without Isha Lakhani and Megha Vakaria.”

This edition of the Fed Cup qualifiers did show the Indians had it in them to raise their level. Ankita was not fielded today as Piperno thought by

putting Rushmi Chakravarthy as the No.1 player, Sania had a better chance against Suchanan and if it went into the decisive doubles, anything could have happened.

Sadly, not only did Sania fail, Rushmi also looked rusty as she was blown off the court by World No 54 Tamarine Tanasugarn (6-0, 6-1).

The sparse gathering was lucky they could get to see Tanasugarn, once ranked in the top 20. She was a picture of poise as she played maturely.

In the second tie, Indonesia were staring at defeat in the crucial doubles but came back from two match points down to make it to the World Group playoffs with Thailand.