THE WORLD OF MARA – FOURTH EPISODE

India, land of mysteries, emotions and secrets “A final under too much pressure” at Bangalore

2007-02-20 to 2008-04-30

“Hurry up Mara, the transport to the airport is waiting for you”: that’s what I was thinking immediately after the doubles victory at Pattaya.

Oh, the life of a tennis player, with every minute measured out. I feel like a yuppie making a career! The journey to Bangalore wasn’t all that relaxing, bearing in mind that we met turbulence and the plane bounced up and down the whole way. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to these air trips. As we were late getting to Bangalore, I wasn’t able to attend the presentation of the tournament and the official dinner, where I would have worn a typical Indian sari. What a shame, these ceremonies with typical costumes are always very nice and refined. The hotel was exceptional yet there were poorly dressed, underfed people begging at the street corners. These contrasts are frequent everywhere in the world, but are much more accentuated in India.

The first round put me opposite a seeded Chinese girl, Shegnan Sun. I won the first round quite easily but she got the better of me in the second, where I had to annul a set point. I closed the match at the tiebreak. Whenever you go to countries of South-East Asia the problem of food hygiene comes up, and can cause unpleasant bouts of dysentery.

I’ve learnt my lesson by now. I only drink water out of sealed bottles and I only eat fruit after carefully washing it and peeling it. My first doubles match together with the local idol, Sania Mirza, was an exact photocopy of my singles match. Even the score was the same. I must admit it wasn’t easy to play doubles with her. Since she was the local tennis player, the telecameras were trained on her the whole time and a tremendous pressure built up even when she was playing the simplest points.

Anyone who complains about driving in Italy should take a motor-ride in India. It seems that the horn is your only hope of making your way through the hawkers who take up the street, the cows that mustn’t be disturbed (because they’re sacred animals), the buses crowded with people who even sit on the roof, and snake-charmers. My head seemed to be bursting at the end of every car-ride. And to think I complained about the traffic in Rome!

My second singles match was against one of the few girls in the circuit who’s taller than me, Agkul Amanmuradova from Uzbekistan. Her service is a bomb but her athletic condition wasn’t excellent. She got ahead in one set and was leading by 3 to 0 in the second. At this point I began to get wise to her tricks, which in truth were rather unimaginative and all very much the same, and the match turned the other way. The final result was 3-6 7-5 6-2 in my favour.

My next meeting, with the seeded Japanese player Sema, was much simpler, luckily. My opponent was very young and she made a lot of mistakes that helped me. The doubles match against the Indo-American Uberoi sisters wasn’t difficult either, which was just as well since I was rather tired mentally.

That way I had the time to recharge my batteries a bit and I took advantage, too, of the hotel swimming-pool and the beautiful park surrounding it. The semi-finals match against Olga Savchuk of Ukraine was much simpler than I expected. She was very tired and satisfied with herself after the way the tournament had gone and my service worked very well. A simple victory without any worries.

The semi-finals brought me defeat in the doubles, though. I had been rather expecting it, since Sania was very tense. The nervous cap she was wearing got the better of her, but never mind, even in the doubles the results were positive. At a change of court people got a glimpse of my recent tattoo, which depicts a Hindu symbol. Since everyone here knows what it means they asked me for explanations, but we women have a right to keep our secrets, at least for a little while, don’t we?

I played my second finals of the season, in the singles this time, against the Russian player Yaroslava Shvedova. I was full of energy.

The match was fought out strenuously and was very, very well-balanced. I had my serve broken only once, but that was enough to let her win the first set. The second went much the same way. She played the match without signs of nerves, even though it was her first finals. A very fine player.

That’s how my adventure finished in India, the land of mysteries and contradictions. Now I’m off for lavish and opulent Dubai. Hi from Mara.