‘Gritty’ Sania serves winner

He admitted that, when first offered the job, he’d barely heard of Sania, and so had little clue of who or what he was dealing with. ‘‘I was told about her by my good friend Mahesh Bhupathi, and I then did a bit of surfing on the net to find out more.’’

On Tuesday, it appears, his research was proved right. Farrington (38) singled out Sania’s returns, which were ‘‘great, cleanly hit’’, her ‘‘quite impressive’’ court coverage and her aggression, which he says ‘‘makes all the difference’’.

‘‘Out there Sania was playing to win.’’ That apart, Farrington added, ‘‘she did well moving her opponent around the court’’.

However, he sounded somewhat concerned about the unforced errors Sania committed. ‘‘It needs to be improved’’, he said.

He didn’t wish to elaborate on other areas that need improvement. ‘‘It’s not necessary to get into those details’’, he said. ‘‘We’ve been just one match together.’’

He’s optimistic about this particular relationship. ‘‘We’ve begun on a winning note. You guys (India) will be seeing a lot of changes in Sania in future.’’

Sania is only the second WTA Tour player Bahamanian Farrington has coached, after Mary Jo Fernandes back in the 1980s.

For Sania the win was her second over Groenefeld, the last a three-set affair in 2004 during the Palm Beach Gardens event in the semis. Back then she was no 194 in the world, the German ranked 75.

The win thus took Sania to 14-9 (W/L) during the season and improved her hard-court record to 10-4. In her quest for her first Tier-III title, Sania, next runs into Kristina Brandi (Puerto Rico) ranked No 67 in the world in what is a battle of firsts.