Sania Mirza Vs Venus Williams - US Open 2005 - in Stanford CA

It was middle of the year and one day around June 2005 a friend of mine comes over and surprises us with tickets to a tennis match between Indian Tennis Sensation Sania Mirza (well she was a craze then) and Venus Williams.

We are instantly thrilled and gladly accepted the offer. The D day was on 27th of July. We arrived at the Stanford Stadium in Palo Alto. Though we arrived relatively early we could see that the entire area was filled with folks who came to see the match. We did have a reserved parking too but it took us a while to identify the reserved parking for one and to get there was a different thing. Too many cars and since it is close to the Stanford University, lot of college crowd in the neighborhood.

We parked the car, took some refreshments and walking into the court where she was playing. It was still I guess one of the first few rounds of matches. We get to seat at one of the corners of the court and we had a pretty good view of the players and the play. Eventually the players walked in with Venus leading Sania. Both shook hands and the match started.

Match was pretty well played before Sania let it go in the end of second set even though the score suggests a rout by Venus. The overall score was a two set victory in I think just over an hour. The spectators for this match was evenly matched between Venus and Sania supporters. You all can assume I think when ever there is a good volley from Sania the reaction from the crowd. It all sunk into the crowd of the eventuality and so the intensity of the support died a slow death in the second set.

Overall it was a fun match, we got to see the players in close quarters, the way they let out a cry when volleying or serving, the stamina they posses in reaching for the hard to reach cross courts etc. Once the match ended, there was no acknowledgement at all from either players for the support they received. They both just walked back with Sania leading the way. We waited for over 10 minutes after the players walked in and then started out. It was relatively cold - not too chilly - and we knew we had a good distance to walk before reaching our cars.