I still enjoy challenges: Sania Mirza

Hyderabad: She is 35 and is already blessed with 20 glorious years in professional tennis. She has achieved enough but still desires to conquer a few more peaks. It has indeed been an amazing unfinished journey for Sania Mirza as she plays her 15th Australian Open in January next year after she first appeared in […]

Hyderabad: She is 35 and is already blessed with 20 glorious years in professional tennis. She has achieved enough but still desires to conquer a few more peaks. It has indeed been an amazing unfinished journey for Sania Mirza as she plays her 15th Australian Open in January next year after she first appeared in this Grand Slam tournament way back in 2005.

She has good results in the tennis’ first Grand Slam tournament of the year. She won her women’s doubles crown with Martina Hingis in 2016 while she clinched mixed doubles title with Mahesh Bhupathi in 2009, besides she was runners-up at the Australian Open three times in mixed doubles event (with Bhupathi, Horia Tecau and Ivan Dodig).

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This Hyderabad star returned to tennis with a bang in January in 2020 after motherhood when she and Nadiia Kichenok won the women’s doubles title in the Hobart International tournament. She and Chinese Shuai Zhang went on to win a second tournament in Ostrava in Czech Republic in September this year. It was her 43rd career doubles title. “Yes, 2021 has been good for me and it is always nice to be back to the game which I love the most. I had solid returns and so I’m looking forward to 2022,” she said.

Sania said that it is always a big challenge to play big-time tennis, particularly after becoming a mother. “It becomes tougher and tougher as my son will gradually go to school. I need to follow a lot of things for my son. Being a professional, it is challenging.”

Her three-year-old son Izhaan accompanies her in most of the tournaments. But last year when Sania played in the Ostrava tournament in Czech Republic it was an emotional moment as she left her son in Chicago with her sister Anam. “That is the hardest thing to do when you leave your son and play the tournament. Obviously, every parent is attached to his or her child. But being a mother, we are more emotionally attached as we spend more time with the kid. So when I left for the Ostrava tournament, I was crying in the car till I reached the airport.”

The tennis star said she is still enjoying the game. “If I’m still able to play tennis it is because I enjoy the game. I still feel there is top level tennis left in me.”

She agrees fitness plays a big role. “Tennis is physically a very demanding sport. After becoming a mother, it is more challenging. I put on more weight and therefore one needs to work more hard. Without fitness, it is very, very difficult to compete at the highest level.”

Sania says Izhaan knows that both his mother and father (Shoaib Mallik) play sports. “I remember before the final of the Ostrava tournament, he was saying ‘Mama bring the trophy’ on a video call. Now he understands that and he got excited when his father won the man of the match in the T20 World Cup. He would say: Oh I’m the winner.”

Back in Hyderabad, Sania is training with Davis Cuppers Saketh Myneni and Vishnu Vardhan. “I’m leaving for Australia at the end of the year. I have been training with Saketh Myneni and Vishnu Vardhan here. We are putting in the effort,” she said before she signed off by saying she will play with Nadiia Kichenok in Australia.

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