Sania Mirza is changing lives
Have you seen the movie ‘Million Dollar Baby’? It is about a determined woman’s attempt to establish herself as a boxer with the guidance of a hardened trainer. It won 4 Oscars, another 45 wins and 28 nominations all over the world. Hillary Swank as Maggie displayed determination, valour, energy, arrogance, fear and youthfulness. That was boxing and reel life. Here it is tennis and real life. Yes, this article is about the Indian tennis player Sania Mirza whose achievements are commendable.
India has great tennis players in Vijay Amirtaraj, Mahesh Bhupathi, Ramesh Krishnan and Leander Paes. Only Leander Paes had the charisma to inspire many. But the Sania Mirza wave is sweeping all. Coming from a traditional Muslim family and being a female has its own advantages and disadvantages.
Sania Mirza started playing tennis at the age of six. Her first coach was her father Imran. He was a builder and he found out the talent in her at an early age. “To dream your children to earn name and fame in sports is one thing and putting the best of efforts in adversity is something totally different …” says Sania Mirza while speaking about her parents. Mr. Prahlad Jain coached Sania Mirza when she was studying in tenth standard in Nasr School in Hyderabad. These two persons deserve credit for they have laid good foundation.
If we follow her career closely, Sania Mirza sets a strategic objective and a short time goal always. She works towards that with focused discipline and also doesn’t gets bogged down by intermediate hurdles. As these are the qualities of champions. On September 4, 2002 she was quoted saying that, she aims to reach the top 50 in the next three years and she achieved that well in time. First, she started dominating the Indian Junior circuit, and then she focused on the international junior circuit.
Sania Mirza was ranked as 27 in the ITF Juniors. She partnered Alisa Kleybanova of Russia and became the first-ever Indian girl to have won a Grand Slam title when she triumphed in the girls’ doubles event at the Wimbledon, the mecca of tennis in the year 2003. After that, Sania Mirza moved on to ATP. In ATP, first she topped the Indian rankings then moved on to achieve the best ranking in January 2002, ever by an Indian right from 1952. From there on Sania Mirza got even better. On October 10, 2005 she was ranked 31.
Sania Mirza was the first Indian woman to achieve the record of breaking into the top-50 WTA rankings. Her career high ranking in doubles was 23, which she achieved that feat on January 29, 2007. Sania Mirza and Leander Paes won gold medal in mixed doubles tennis final in 15th Asian Games held at Doha, Qatar. Sania Mirza is the first Indian to win a WTA tournament. Like that Sania Mirza has many ‘firsts’ in her achievements kitty.
Now we can see that, 90% of the tournaments Sania Mirza plays are abroad. She explains that as, to get more exposure to professional tennis and to get quality competition. There is a plan and she follows it strictly. Everybody started asking who she is when; Sania Mirza became the youngest entrant at fourteen years and seven months to be accepted by the Wimbledon 2001 committee into the main draw of the Grand slam event.
There is no looking back after that, Sania Mirza became the first Indian sportswoman to feature on the cover of Time magazine (South Asian edition) and was also included in its 2005 list of Asia’s heroes. Sania Mirza was listed as one of the ten people capable of changing the world by London’s intellectual weekly New Statesman. In an article by Jason Cowley, the weekly says it is difficult to believe that “a slender 18-year-old Muslim tennis player from India has the potential to change the world, but it is equally difficult to overestimate the effect Mumbai-born Sania Mirza, is having on millions of young men and women, and especially women”. At Stars for Stars on March 21, 2006, collected Newcomer of the Year Award
Sania Mirza is equally respected and admired by peers and professionals. American tennis ace Venus Williams booted Sania Mirza out of the WTA tournament at Stanford 2005 in the second round, winning 3-6, 2-6. Venus Williams remarked that “Sania Mirza played well, but she’s not something I haven’t seen before.” Vijay Amirtaraj the former Indian ace tennis player and former ATP President admire what he calls “her sense of disciplined arrogance,” on court.
Sania Mirza was critisized frequently for her on the court dressing by hard line muslim clerics for baring flesh. Haseeb-ul-hasan Siddiqui, a leading cleric of the Muslim organisation the Sunni Ulema Board said, “The dress she wears on the tennis courts not only doesn’t cover large parts of her body but leaves nothing to the imagination. She will undoubtedly be a corrupting influence on these young women, which we want to prevent”. A religious scholar reportedly issued a “fatwa” about her dress code. Quoted saying as, “Veil can be dropped on certain occasions but not the way the girl is going about and playing in all those countries”. Maintaining stoic silence on the issue, Sania Mirza who comes from a devout Muslim family, passed the query off saying that, “It is quite disturbing that my dress has become the subject of controversy I don’t want to say anything on this” and added “I guess I’m not dressing the way Islam states but I guess we all make mistakes and that’s why Islam has forgiveness.” - Reuters New York, September 1, 2005.
The All-India Shia Muslim Personal Law Board strongly condemned the comments of some Muslim leaders on the choice of Indian tennis star Sania Mirza’s on court dress. The board not only condemned, even went on to praise Sania Mirza for her achievements and asked leaders not to meddle with the sports arena. “The fatwa issued against Sania by a section of Muslim clerics is unnecessary and uncalled for. It is not for them to issue guidelines on what players should wear during matches”, said the chairman of the board Mirza Mohammad Athar. Athar lauded Sania Mirza for bringing pride to the community and the country by becoming the first Indian to reach the fourth round of the US Open. He went on to say that Sania Mirza had become a role model for the Muslim community and the country. Athar urged Muslim leaders to encourage Sania Mirza to achieve even greater heights and bring pride to the community and the nation. “They should not demoralize her by issuing fatwas on her dresses”, he added.
Financially it was tough for Sania Mirza’s family to fund her training and tours. They got support from GVK Industries, Hyderabad, and the Andhra Pradesh Sports Association. Later on the All-India Tennis Association [AITA] started footing the majority of her annual expenses on the circuit. People should keep in mind when they criticize sports person’s for their appearance in advertisement. In their initial stage with abundant talent they suffer for money. Indian government also cannot be blamed for this. There is a large population to take care of. All these sporting icons have not reached to where they are easily. The have to make many sacrifices and break many barriers to achieve it. The price they have paid is much. Though it cannot be earned again, let them earn it in the form of money and fame.
To write about some of Sania Mirza’s matches, in a singles match in June 2005 Wimbledon second round, she lost to Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia 4-6 7-6 (7-4) 4-6. But there was hardly any difference in the level of play with both the players hitting an almost identical number of winners Sania Mirza’s 35 to Kuznetsova’s 38. This was one of the earliest matches when started capturing the headlines. On 4 August, 2005 Sania Mirza caused a major upset by beating 4th seed Nadia Petrova of Russia in the US$ 1.3 million Acura classic tennis tournament. In a one-sided match, the Sania Mirza stored a straight set victory 6-2, 6-1 over her opponent. This is where she started causing major upsets in top class tournaments.
The match that showcased Sania Mirza’s fighting back instincts was the quarter finals of the USD170,000 Japan Open held at Tokyo, despite loosing the first set Sania Mirza rallied ahead to beat top seed Vera Zvonareva of Russia 5-7, 6-2, 6-4. One more match worth its mention for her fight back was, in one of the Grade-II finals in Pretoria, South Africa, she was one-set all and 1-5, 0-30 down against 45-ranked Kelly Anderson of South Africa. But Sania Mirza hung back and after warding off another match-point at 2-5, she went on and won the match.
The Indian government recognized Sania Mirza’s sporting talent and achievements by presenting her the Arjuna award when she was just 18 years old. It was given by the Indian president Abdul Kalam on 29 August, 2005 in his official residence Rashtrapathi Bhawan, New Delhi, India. The Arjuna award recognizes outstanding achievement in the field of sports at the international level. In January 2006, Sania Mirza was honoured with Padma Sri Award on the eve of the Indian Republic day, in recognition of her contribution to Indian tennis.
By her commendable achievements in her young age, Sania Mirza has become a role model for large number of Indians. In the 60 years of Indian independence, Sania Mirza can be easily ranked as No.1 sporting icon from India who is creating waves all over the world. Technically, she has become a good baseline player and has got a strong and hard hitting forehand. Based on her technique and sound temperament, I presume that Sania Mirza will break into top 10 ATP rankings in both singles and doubles before the end of 2008.