MUMBAI: New tennis kid on the block Sania Mirza is sure doing India proud by her brilliant performance on the courts. The latest feather in her cap was defeating US Open champion Svetlana Kuznetsova in the Dubai Duty Free Womens Open. It comes as no surprise that the tournament will be aired deferred live on Dubai based Ten Sports.
The telecast will include Mirzas quarter-final match, as well as full delayed coverage of her win over Kuznetsova.
Mirzas brilliant comeback from 0-4 down against the fourth seed Russian star will begin on Ten Sports at 7:30 pm on 3 March, followed by live coverage of the quarterfinal match. The live quarterfinal matches will be played in two sessions evening 4 pm to 6 pm, followed by the night session from 8:30 pm to 10:30 pm.
Mirza is scheduled to play her quarterfinal match against Jelena Jankovic of Serbia-Montenegro, who is ranked 28th in the world. At the same time, there are high expectations from Mirza to improve upon her current 97th position after this week.
The two semi-final matches are scheduled for Saturday, 5 March and the final is slated for Sunday, 6 March.
Taj Television Limited (owners of Ten Sports) CEO Chris McDonald said, "We take great pride in providing relevant and entertaining sports content for the Indian sub-continent, and nothing gets bigger for the fans here than Sania Mirzas wonderful quest in Dubai at the moment. Our viewers wanted to see her in action, and we are happy to serve them."
The 18-year-old from Hyderabad upset world No 37 Jelena Kostanic of Croatia 6-7, 6-4, 6-1 in the first round, and despite a painful twisted ankle, got the better of a shell-shocked Kuznetsova 6-4, 6-2 to advance to the quarter-finals of the $ 1 million WTA event. She recently created history by becoming the first Indian to win a WTA event at her hometown Hyderabad last month.
Pointing out that marketing is an important aspect of this game, Gupta said, There is definitely a market for putting across a brands point of view through programmes that would be watched. If such fare is interactive, then the payoffs are huge.No wonder, FBC India is on track to meet its revenue target for 2005, which has been put by Gupta anywhere between $ 4- $4.5 million.
Though the Indian joint venture with FBC having majority shareholding was born in October last, the parent company was formed in 1998. FBC is a European-based media and entertainment group specializing in television format creation, production, distribution and strategic communications.
