2015 has been a year of many firsts for Sania Mirza. More recently, she became the first female tennis player to get the coveted Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna. Sania tells TUlIKA AGNIHOTRI OJHA about the elation of creating history, what makes her tick, and why it’s important to dream
This year is turning out to be exceptionally good for the golden girl of tennis, Sania Mirza. After a smashing victory at Wimbledon last month, the 28-year-old has another reason to cheer. She is set to be conferred the highest honour given for achievement in sports — the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna — on August 29, which is celebrated as the National Sports Day. Her name had been approved by the Awards Committee after a recommendation from the Sports Ministry earlier this month.
This will add to her long list of awards, which includes the Arjuna Award and the Padma Shri. An elated Sania, who is currently in Toronto playing the run-up tournaments to the US Open that gets under way in Flushing Meadows on August 31, said: “I am extremely lucky to have several memorable achievements in my career. Yes, these are big but I would probably add the achievement of being number one in the world as something that is very dear to me.”
Her father Imran Mirza said it is a tremendous honour to get such a prestigious award from the nation. “It is bound to inspire Sania to achieve more laurels for the country,” said Imran, who is also her coach and manager.
The Hyderabad-born tennis star surged past 11 other contenders for the Khel Ratna, including hockey captain Sardara Singh, squash star Dipika Pallikal, discus thrower Vikas Gowda, and shuttler Kidambi Srikanth. With this, Sania becomes the first woman tennis player to get the Khel Ratna, which carries a medal, scroll of honour, and cash prize of Rs7.5 lakh.
This has been a year of many firsts for Sania, who believes she is a “dreamer, believer, and doer — even against all odds”. True to her words, she has dreamt, believed and done enough to achieve what no Indian woman had until July 11, 2015. This was the day she created history on the Wimbledon court when she smashed her way to victory with Swiss player Martina Hingis, becoming the first female player from the country to win a women’s doubles Grand Slam trophy.
This year, Sania also became to first female tennis player from India to achieve world number one rank in doubles following her fantastic win at the WTA Family Circle Cup with Martina, in Charleston, South Carolina. Sania has now won titles at all Grand Slam events.
So, how does it feel to create historyIJ “I have been fortunate that I can look back at my career and remember several historic moments. But winning Wimbledon is every tennis player’s dream and is a fulfillment of a life-long ambition,” says Sania.
A big factor that contributed to the historic win at Wimbledon was the great rapport and compatibility between Sania and Martina. Despite different gaming styles, they complemented each other well, and the result was for everyone to see. “Martina and I get along famously on and off the court. There is also a lot of mutual respect. Her strengths complement mine and while my forehand is considered my biggest plus point, Martina has a great backhand apart from being superb at the net. We both return well.”
For Sania, these accolades are a culmination of 21 years of dedication and discipline, training for hours on a daily basis, ensuring she stays fit with gruelling gym sessions, and most importantly firm determination to realise her dreams. Sania believes as a girl it’s not easy to chase your dreams, and it is crucial for girls to believe in their dreams. ‘Dream and then live the dream’ is her mantra. She is indeed an inspiration for not just girls in India who want to pursue tennis, but for any girl or woman with a dream, anywhere in the world. This was precisely why the United Nations chose Sania as the Women’s Goodwill Ambassador for South Asia last year, entrusting her with initiatives to promote women empowerment in the region.
And this is just one of the many initiatives she lends support to. She is also the PETA champion for animals, and advocates the slogan of ‘adopt, don’t buy’. As a part of a recent campaign, she posed with her adopted cat, Posh, and urged people to adopt homeless cats and dogs, and be kind to animals.
This in no way means Sania is all work and no play. There is a fun, naughty and glamorous side to her. She likes to dress up, knows her Pradas and Jimmy Choos, and manages to smash it on the court and look smashing off of it with equal ease. She was the showstopper for jewellery designer and friend Moni Agarwal at the India International Jewellery Week on August 3, where she set the ramp on fire in a purple silk sari, flaunting a diamond choker and a kamarbandh.
She is, after all, like any other girl who likes her diamonds and bling. “Being a sportsperson doesn’t mean that I don’t have desires other women have,” she was quoted as saying on the show’s opening day. The self-confessed fashion lover — who has a shoe fetish and is the proud owner of hundreds of pairs — has in the past also walked the ramp at Blenders Pride Fashion Tour, Indian Bridal Fashion Week, and Global Fashion Show.
Apart from being super active on Twitter and Instagram, Sania seems to be a pro at Dubsmash, too, an app that lets you mouth words to famous quotes from movies or TV shows, resulting in hilarious videos. Recently, her Dubsmash video with husband, Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik, went viral. In the video, Sania and Shoaib could be seen grooving to popular Bollywood number, ‘Abhi to party shuru hui hai’.
Be it enacting Comedy Nights with Kapil’s Guthi with her younger sister Anam, or Sholay’s ‘Basanti in kutto ke saamne mat naachna’, or Kareena Kapoor’s ‘Kaun hai yeh, jisne dobara mud ke mujhe nahin dekha’ from Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, Sania displays a talent for drama. One wonders if she has any hidden aspirations, acting maybeIJ Or maybe it’s because some of her closest friends are from the film industry: Farah Khan, Sajid Khan, Genelia and Riteish Deshmukh, and TV actor Rakshanda Khan to name a few.
Sania is extremely close to her parents, who she credits for her success, and 21-year-old Anam, who is an aspiring journalist. Anam has earlier been quoted as saying that her Api is superhuman and has worked very hard to get where she is today.
I have had a wonderful childhood and I would not exchange that for anything in the world. The Mirzas as a family have always been very close. It was a lot of fun but we were expected to follow strict rules and principles on many fronts. There was a lot of warmth and love and affection, and we were taught to deal with problems and difficulties with a smile,” recalls Sania.
Sania started playing tennis at the age of six. Young Sania looked up to Steffi Graf for inspiration, probably for the want of an idol in her own country. So what sparked her interest in sports back then, when most kids wanted to grow up to be doctors or engineersIJ “My family loved sport and it was natural that I would take up some sport. It turned out to be tennis. There was plenty of encouragement for sport in our household.”
Today, Sania has set an example for the many tennis aspirants in the country. But even though efforts are being made to improve tennis at the grassroots level in India (with star-studded events like the Champions Tennis league and International Premier Tennis league), will the sport ever have the stature it deserves in our cricket-mad countryIJ “It may take a while but tennis is today very popular compared to two decades ago when I picked up a tennis racquet as a kid,” says Sania.
One reason for this could be because tennis is an expensive sport; apparently an average professional tennis player in India has to spend around Rs50 lakh per year. Sania, too, experienced difficulties in her initial years, and her father had to find sponsors for her training.
How can those without the means go about itIJ “We need to create a proper system, which is lacking in our country. Rs50 lakh per year is big money for an individual, but investing Rs5 crore per year on 10 players is not that much money for a country which prides itself on having a sports culture. If the Government can put in Rs5 crore on the 10 top juniors of India, we could produce Grand Slam level players, and being represented at Wimbledon or US Open in a truly global sport like tennis is a matter of great pride and honour for any country,” she says.
A small step towards realising this dream is the Sania Mirza Tennis Academy (SMTA), which the tennis player started at Murtuzaguda in suburban Hyderabad in March 2013. It is doing commendable work of finding fresh talent, even those from rural areas who are trained as ‘special wards’.
Despite her crazy schedule and travelling, Sania finds time to visit the trainees in her academy. “When I am in India, I give a lot of advice to the trainees as well as the coaches. The first thing that I expect from the kids is to have a passion for the sport that will inspire them to do the tremendous hard work that they will need to put in to earn laurels in the future,” says Sania.
Does she think a person is born with an aptitude for sports or can it be cultivated and honed by consistent trainingIJ “You need the raw material of talent for sure. But honing one’s skills is essential and that could take years,” she says.
Sania has also had a fair share of controversies, one of which even made her cry on national television. From being slammed by Muslim clerics for wearing ‘un-Islamic’ clothes on court, to being labelled a rebel for wearing T-shirts with messages such as ‘Well-behaved women rarely make history’, to being accused of disrespecting the Tricolour, and her patriotism being doubted for marrying a Pakistani cricketer, Sania has been controversy’s favourite child.
She knew it wouldn’t be easy being India’s daughter and Pakistan’s daughter-in-law. Tiding over one controversy after another, and dealing with injuries and surgeries at the same time, she reciprocated by winning one laurel after another.
It’s only the game that matters to her. And she wants to keep getting better at it. In the past, Sania has made an honest appraisal of her weaknesses on the court. She once said that not being so fast on her feet was her most evident weakness.
Imran says Sania has reached the top of her game by tackling her inherent weaknesses, such as her second hand serve and movement on court. “Sania is someone who is extremely determined, and once she sets her heart on achieving something, she will do everything that it takes to get it. If she had been unable to improve on her weaknesses, she could not have survived on the international circuit for long, leave alone get to a ranking of number one in the world,” says the proud father.
Her fans are now eagerly awaiting her autobiography, which has been in the offing for a long time, and is expected to be in stores soon. The idea behind the autobiography, apart from telling her own story, was to put to rest all misconceptions and “partly true, partly false” information about the tennis star, and be a direct communication between her and the people. But as time went by, and Sania added to her achievements, the chapters in her autobiography kept increasing, which in turn pushed back its release.
There are also speculations that just like recent biopics on famous sportspersons such as Milkha Singh (Bhaag Milkha Bhaag), Mary Kom (Mary Kom), and the upcoming one on Mohammad Azharuddin titled Azhar starring Emraan Hashmi, a film would be made on Sania too. Whether or not her close friend and Happy New Year director Farah Khan will direct it, Sania is sure she wants Parineeti Chopra to play her on screen whenever the film is made, probably because the actress essayed the role of a hearty Hyderabadi in Daawat-e-Ishq.
Sania is, after all, a Hindi movie buff — Akshay Kumar is her favourite actor — and likes to catch up on films and listen to music whenever she finds time. Time is a big constraint for her, but she makes sure she spends as much of it as possible with her family and close circle of friends, or simply relaxes at home.
Sania has expressed her desire to start a family soon; she has always wanted to have kids at a young age. After her recent Wimbledon victory, excited husband Shoaib replied to a fan’s query on Twitter: “Junior Malik is coming soon, Inshallah!” He has, in fact, even thought of names — Mirialla or Reem — if they have a daughter!
Motherhood is a totally different ball game, and we are waiting to see Sania don that role. We hope she would be a pro at this too.
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