Double-handed Japanese learn not to make a fist of it

You thought Japanese ingenuity was restricted to sleek automobiles and gadgetry? It’s seeped on to the tennis court as well, with a pac...

You thought Japanese ingenuity was restricted to sleek automobiles and gadgetry? It’s seeped on to the tennis court as well, with a pack of Japanese women opting to play two-handed on both flanks, adding that extra bit of power and pace that their small frames otherwise limit.

There are about 30 women gripping the racket with two fists and punching on both sides on the Tour, and the tribe is only increasing. A decade after Monica Seles showed how it could be done with visible success and an audible grunt, this double-hand-double has found its following, none more faithful than the Japanese.

A third of those 30 have followed Rika Hiraki and Akiko Morigami knocking on the top-50s regularly from Japan and the nation now has a clutch of five players in the top-100. Aiko Nakamura and Shiho Hisamatsu, currently playing here at the Bangalore Open, adhere to the typically constant two-hand grip, and have found more company in Taipei’s Su Wei Hseih, another upcoming player who wants to make up for the lack of muscle.

‘‘Most of us start two-handed because the racket is too heavy and we don’t have the power to match the big girls,’’ says Shiho Hisamatsu (26), who alters her top-bottom grip several times in a single rally. ‘‘I managed to hit very hard and generate power to return the heavy balls, so I continued after a Canadian coach advised me to work further on it.’’

Those like Nakamura (22), currently No 68 in the world, don’t switch the grip playing on either flank but position themselves suitably to counter the opponent from the baseline. Running away with a 6-love first-set win, fifth-seed Nakamura lost her momentum to go down in three sets to Mariya Koryttseva, and coach Eiji Takeuchi reckons that the ploy can at times restricts movement.

‘‘It gets tough when opponents target the body, and players who change grips have to decide fast. Also the reach is short, but it is worth the effort since the Japanese move fast on court. It can tire you out some days, but it works most of the times’’, he says.

Take Sato, who coached Akiko Morigami when she broke into the top-50s, reiterates that the Japanese prefer two-handed on both sides because they found it tough to match the big-hitting ones in power. ‘‘Asians have traditionally been small-built, we have no choice, but to improvise’’, he says.

India’s Melinda Czink-x continues

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BANGALORE: Melinda Czink ousted yet another Indian from a WTA event — this time, the unfancied Rushmi Chakravarthy. Her earlier prized catch, Sania Mirza, watched the demolition poker-faced; she’d sufffered the same fate at the WTA in Kolkata last September.

Czink was ruthless in packing off Chakravarthy 6-1, 6-2 in under an hour. The Indian wild-card entrant, currently 370 on the WTA list found the going tough against left-handed Czink ranked 119, who sent down her first-serves at speeds that Chakravarthy had no clues to.

‘‘I just couldn’t get my game going,’’ Chakravarthy said later, summing up her haplessness at being pitted first-up against a rival ranked 200 places above her. Woefully short on match-practice, Chakravarthy came into the tournament and looked every bit rusty as her own serves failed her against an opponent who enjoyed her second-straight top-100 finish on the Tour.