Exclusive Sania Mirza interview: A fighter who wins her battles on and off tennis court
Some athletes are so talented they’re often perceived to be one in a million. In Sania Mirza’s case, she is literally one in a billion…
Why? Well, it's simple. The 25-year-old is the only Indian woman to have broken into the top 30 rankings of the WTA and she is the only Indian woman to be seeded at a Grand Slam, to make the fourth round of a Grand Slam singles draw, to win a WTA singles title.
And that's not all. In 2009 she also became the only Indian woman to win a Grand Slam when she triumphed in the Australian Open Mixed Doubles competition with her compatriot Mahesh Bhupathi.
But when you’re that successful and famous, with over one billion eyes following your every move, you’re bound to do something that will irk a group or two, and in Mirza’s case, she’s irked many by simply doing what she loves – playing tennis.
Islamist groups took offence to her short tennis skirts, nationalists spotted her once putting her feet up in front of an Indian flag while she was watching a tennis match and they had a field day with it.
Scores of people were also furious when she married Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik last year, but Mirza has so far taken it all in her stride as she continues to pursue her number one passion.
The most recent obstacle that she’s faced is a knee injury she sustained in New York last September which forced her to undergo surgery seven weeks ago.
But Mirza, who was at Zayed Sports City in Abu Dhabi training with the PSS tennis academy coaches this week, is no stranger to serious injuries as the Mumbai-born star recalls the tough times following her wrist injury last season.
“When I came back from my wrist surgery last year I couldn’t even hold a fork to eat my food,” said Mirza in an exclusive interview with Sport360°. “I was out for almost half a year and to come back from that was, for me, phenomenal.”
Mirza had her first sessions on court last week in Abu Dhabi, for the first time since her knee surgery, and although she knows she has an uphill battle ahead of her, she revealed how happy she was to start her comeback trail once again.
“It feels good to be back on the court. It’s good weather, good practice, good time of the year I think to be here in Abu Dhabi and it’s good to just hit a tennis ball again,” she said.
“Of course any surgery that you go through is difficult, not just physically, but also emotionally and mentally to come back from it and have that confidence to kind of believe that that knee is not going to go again, that’s something that you get back slowly.”
Since she turned pro eight years ago, Mirza has gone on to become one of the subcontinent’s greatest female icons, receiving honours from the government and breaking a series of records.
Her latest achievement came last September when she featured in the top ten of the world doubles rankings for the first time, thanks to a stellar year with her partner Elena Vesnina that saw them make the French Open final and the Wimbledon semi-finals together, besides picking up titles in Indian Wells and Charleston.
After scoring such big wins in doubles, many find it hard to remember that Mirza’s rise came in singles and that in 2007 she reached a career-high rank of 27. So does she now see herself as a singles or doubles player?
Mirza says: “Some people take either doubles seriously, or singles seriously. I’m one of the few ones who kind of plays both to the same level of focus and concentration.
“I think that doubles comes more naturally to me and obviously I’ve won a Slam. So the fact is, yes my doubles record is better than singles, but I think that it’s tough to compare the two because singles is a lot more physical.
“It’s a very easy option for me to say ‘you know I’m 60 in singles and I’m 10 or 11 in doubles, then I might as well go the doubles way’ but I think that to be top 100 in singles for the amount of time that I have been – seven or eight years on tour being top 100 except for one year – is an incredible achievement for myself as a tennis player because I know what it takes to be top 100.
“So I enjoy playing doubles but singles is still something that I prioritise but it doesn’t mean that if I’m playing singles I’ll leave the doubles. I love playing doubles and it could be an option later, you never know, but right now it’s not either or, it’s both.”
She has been based in Dubai since she married Malik on April 12, 2010, and although the couple spend a considerable amount of time outside the UAE, Mirza believes that the emirate is the best choice for them to build their home.
“We love Dubai. It’s so close to home. It’s so close to India, and close to Pakistan for my husband. It doesn’t feel like we live outside India because we have a large community here as well,” she said.
“My husband already spends a lot of time in Dubai because they play a lot of their home series for Pakistan in UAE. It was the most obvious option for both of us.”
When it comes to her marriage, Mirza speaks freely of how difficult things got last year with all the controversy her wedding to Malik stirred up. “It was a very high profile marriage and obviously my husband being from Pakistan, me being from India was one of the main reasons,” she said.
“I think it caught everyone by shock more than surprise because we hid it pretty well until the time it was actually released that we were getting married. So I think at least if the media had warmed into it a little bit, where they would have spotted us somewhere, it wouldn’t have been such a shock.
“We expected a lot of media but I think it went to a greater extent than anyone could imagine. I can’t say that I enjoyed it all but the fact is today we’re married and we’re happy and that’s the most important thing.
“Whatever happened in the media is all forgotten and it was a phase in our life and it helped us as a couple to get closer actually. When we got married the first thing that I said to him is ‘if we have gotten through this I think we can get through many things in life very easily’ and thank God we both feel that way today.”
Mirza has now flown to India after her initial practice sessions in Abu Dhabi and she plans on having a training camp with her fellow countrymen Bhupathi and Rohan Bopanna there to prepare for the new season, which she expects to kick off in Auckland – her first tournament after a four-month lay-off.
She hasn’t set herself any specific goals regarding her ranking as she insisted she had one main ambition, or rather hope, for the new season.
She said: “I just want to say that I feel like I want to be injury-free for the rest of the year insha’Allah and the whole season, I think that’s my main goal at the moment more than anything and I think once your injury-free everything else takes care of itself.”
SANIA-MANIA
Residence: The Palm Jumeirah
Favourite player: Steffi Graf
Favourite movie: Ocean’s 11
Favourite actors: Brad Pitt and Hugh Grant
Favourite music: Hip hop, including Eminem
Favourite sports: Cricket and swimming
Person she admires the most: Gandhi
Favourite food: Biryani
Star sign: Scorpio
