The 19-year-old went down 3-6 1-6 to Flavia Pennetta of Italy in a match where she chose to self-destruct spraying a slew of hard groundstrokes.
KOLKATA: Tara Iyer has it all big — serve, groundstrokes and the hunger — but as of now she is a bit small on options.
The 19-year-old went down 3-6 1-6 to Flavia Pennetta of Italy in a match where she chose to self-destruct spraying a slew of hard groundstrokes all over the sidelines when what she really needed was a bit more prudence.
But then this was just Iyer’s second time under the arc lights of the WTA Tour and she is far from a finished product. The heartening bit is that the groundwork is done, what is now required is fine tuning.
“After the first seven games, I was getting nervous and had started to worry. But she is young and needs more experience; just needs to focus on thinking out the point more,” was the reaction of Pennetta who is currently 69 in the world but has finished the last two years with a top-30 ranking.
“I am not used to playing in front of a big crowd and did a lot of unforced errors,” admitted Iyer later. But she did not herself feel that she needs to rein in the power at times. “A lot of players like to play aggressive and that is my basic game plan.
A lot of players don’t mix it up.” That perhaps was the instinctive reaction of a player being questioned right after what must have been a heartbreaking loss. Her coach Aditya Sachdeva who has worked wonders with her game in the short time she has been with him was more forthcoming.
“She is on the thresh hold of the big league. But needs to learn to manoeuvre the ball a bit more. I feel that a clay court season will do her a lot of good as there she will have to construct her points. Clay does not allow easy winners,” said Sachdeva.
At 354, Iyer is the third highest ranked Indian in the world after Sania Mirza and Sunitha Rao. While she did not play up to the level that even her present game already allows her to, she did prop up the hope that she will be the next big thing in Indian tennis.
This girl hits hard and serves with rare venom for an Indian woman player. She will make for interesting court times in the years to come.
It took just 46 minutes for the top seeded pair of Vania King and Alla Kudryavtseva to beat Ankita Bhambri and Rushmi Chakravarthi 6-1 6-1.The only bit of cheer for the Indian camp came in the form of Sunitha Rao again as she partnered Monique Adamczak of Australia to beat Marta Domachowska and Neha Uberoi 6-1 6-4.
Second seed Daniela Hantuchova made her first appearance to register a facile first round win while fourth seed Maria Kirilenko of Russia beat Ekaterina Ivanova 6-1 6-4. Meanwhile, the top-seeded Marion Bartoli lost to Vania King 1-6 5-7 in a match on Tuesday.
King played aggressively from the very onset and Bartoli was just unable to match her pace. As is the won’t speculation already abounds if this was another case of a top-seed flaying down to India to pocket the appearance money and make an exit.
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