Somdev is world no. 70 !!

Somdev Devvarman moved a bit closer to his target of a top-50 ATP ranking by the end of the year, by getting to world no.70, as per ATP chart released on Monday, May 2, 2011.

His strong showing in the Serbia open helped him reach this rank. He again ran into Tipsarevic of Serbia (rank 36) and lost out to him in the quarterfinals. He had played him in the Davis Cup earlier and also in the Masters. Do look up Somdev labeled posts on this blog to read all about those encounters.

Somdev played very well in this tournament and continuing with his giant-killings, upstaged world no. 26 Guillermo Garcia-Lopez in the second round. Hope his good run continues and he reaches top-50 sooner than he thought :-).

Meanwhile, Sania Mirza is now ranked 77 on the WTA chart.

Way to go Indian Tennis !!

Your Favourite Sport(s) and your thoughts on it..

I have interest in all sports and the excitement for that particular sport increases many-folds when India is playing internationally.

It gets the adrenalin pumping - be it the Football qualifiers, where India is pitted against much higher ranked teams; Chess events, where we expect Vishy to hold the challenge and win everytime;Formula one, where Narain Karthikeyan has another chance; Hockey tournaments, where the Indian team struggles to qualify for bigger events like Olympics; Badminton tournaments, where Saina Nehwal will weave her magic spell and come out victorious; Tennis events, where the double S- Somdev and Sania will show their mettle to much higher ranked players; or, any Asian/Commonwealth events, where indian contingent will get many golds , silvers and bonzes in Weightlifting, Atheletics, Boxing, Shooting, Rowing, Archery and many such sports. Now, I will look forward to 2012 London Olympics as well :-).

Which are the sports you like and follow keenly and what are the changes you think are required to get India to no.1 in that sport or in case it is already no.1, then how to sustain that ranking? For example, In an earlier post, I was wondering who will keep up Vishwanathan Anand's legacy in chess. See that post here.

Keep your comments flowing in.....

Somdev at it again...

Somdev Devvarman is having a great run in the Tennis Masters. After his great performance at Indian Wells (read post), he reached the third round of the Miami Masters, before bowing out to World No. 6 David Ferrer, 4-6, 2-6.

Somdev gave a very good account of himself in the first set and broke Ferrer in the first game itself. Thereafter, the breaking of serves continued until 3-3 and then went on serve before Ferrer broke him again to win the set 6-4.

As is the hallmark of Somdev's game, he tried to return every ball thrown at him and had some very good long rallies, one that I remember lasted 28 strokes !!

Its great to see Somdev give a run-for-their-money to top players. I sincerely hope that he improves his game even further to get a look-in top-50 soon. These run-ins with the top players (he played Nadal recently) will definitely do him a world-of-good.

One thing I noticed is that his first serve percentage dropped in this game. It has been a huge positive for him as he gets a higher percentage of his first-serves in. Guess he needs to work on that a bit more and the results can start flowing in even more for him.

Way to go Somdev!!!

Double S do India proud....

The Indian Tennis's double S - Sania and Somdev have done really well in the last few weeks. While Somdev was a key player for India against Serbia in the Davis Cup and also reached the pre-quarters of Indian Wells Tournament, Sania sneaked in a good doubles play and won the women's double at the same tournament at Indian Wells, US.

Somdev Devvarman is the new flag bearer of Indian Men's tennis. He shone bright in the Davis cup tie against last year's winners Serbia. Although the score line of 1-4 in favor of Serbia does not reflect much, but Somedev was the shining light winning the only match against Tapservic, ranked 45 in the world. He paired with Rohan Bopanna, to give a tough fight to the Serbians in the crucial doubles match. The match lasted over 3 hrs. and was a treat to watch.

Next, He moved to the US and played thru the qualifiers to reach the main draw. He beat good and seeded players like Baghdatis, the 19th seed, to reach the pre-quarterfinals and ran into Rafael Nadal, the World No.1. By the way, he beat Baghdatis 7-5, 6-0!!!

It was a good opportunity for Somdev to show his class against Nadal.. and he did so in style. He started by being 2-0 up in the 1st set and then moved to 5-5 before losing the first set 7-5. Everyone thought that the second set would be a cakewalk for Nadal and were expecting a 6-0 whitewash, but Somdev surprised everyone and held him 4-4 before losing 6-4. The highlight of his play was mixing the speeds of his serves and made Nadal do a lot of work on the returns. One of the ralies lasted 23 strokes and was a real treat to watch. At the end, the crowd gave him a standing ovation!!

Watching him play like this made me really proud and we can say that a top 50 slot is not far and we will see a lot of him in the coming days.

Somdev is now ranked 73rd after his brilliant run at Indian Wells, up 11 places.

Meanwhile, Sania Mirza participated in the Women's doubles at the same tournament at Indian Wells. She partnered Russia's Elena Vesnina . After some splendid play, they reached the finals and finally won against eighth seeds Mattek-Sands and Shaughnessy 6-0, 7-5.

For records, Mirza and Vesnina, who were quarter-finalists at Dubai and Doha in February, were unseeded in this Indian Wells tournament.

Perhaps Sania is looking to move to doubles as her Singles ranking is not going where she would like it to be. Only time will tell.

Meanwhile, Let's see what more good results we get from the double S :-).

The Start........

Dear Indian Sports Fans,

With the Cricket World Cup 2011 going on in India, Cricket has taken center stage ...No one had any doubts about that with India being a cricket-crazy nation :).

At the same time we had some great performances by other Indian athletes - Badminton: Saina Nehwal winning the Swiss Open (after a slightly less-than expected performance in All-England); Tennis: Somdev Devvarman reaching the pre-quarter-finals of the Indian Wells (US) tournament, finally going down to World No.1 Rafael Nadal, and Sania Mirza winning the women's doubles at the same tournament.

However, these great moments were overshadowed by cricket.

Through this blog, I would endeavor to keep track of non-Cricket sports in India and bring to you the latest happenings in those - be it Chess (where Vishy is holding sway), Football (Can our team retain AFC championship), Hockey (what is happening to the national sport), and all other sporting disciplines. (though occasionally I may venture into Cricket also :-)..). This will help record and remember what all these great althelets are doing and give these sports a platform...This is my humble contribution as an Indian Sports Fan.

In the Next few posts, I would write about recent performances of Indian athletes in Tennis and Badminton. Watch out !!

Happy Reading !!