Sania Mirza will be in Las Vegas, the entertainment capital of the world, for a week starting March 2. Famous for its casino resorts, the 22-year-old Indian, however, will have little time for that as she heads to Gil Reyes' training centre for a stint of energy-sapping workouts.
Reyes, incidentally, is the man credited with turning around Andre Agassi's career as a perennial top-10 power. Agassi went on to join Aussie legend Rod Laver as the only man to win five Grand Slam titles after celebrating his 29th birthday.
Reyes has been more than a trainer for Agassi. He's been a trusted friend in a two-decade partnership that saw the great American name his first-born, Jaden Gil, after Reyes.
"It's going to be a new experience and I'm looking forward to it," Sania told TOI. "I've heard so much about it from Ana (Ivanovic) and (Fernando) Verdasco, who had trained there before he made the semi-finals of the Australian Open. This is going to be a short stint because I'll be playing tournaments in the following week. If it works well for me I want to go over for a longer stint in the near future."
Sania will be joined by coach Sven Groeneveld at Reyes' centre, where she's expected to work both on and off the court.
"The schedule hasn't been drawn up as yet," Sania's father Imran said. "As in, how much time she spends in the gym and how much working out, but we should have that finalized in the next couple of days," he added.
After the week-long session in Las Vegas, the Hyderabadi is expected to play two top tier tournaments in Indian Wells, starting March 11, where she defends 130 ranking points, and Miami. Sania, who has risen 12 places in the ranking this week to 75, however, stands to lose 60 points when the new rankings are announced on Monday.
The Indian ace is hoping to get wildcards in both Indian Wells
and Miami. Groeneveld will accompany her to both events. Sania, whose ranking had fallen out of the 120s at the start of the season, is coming back from a long injury lay-off.
No comments:
Post a Comment