Indian Tennis Wizard Sania Mirza opens up on her professional journey and retirement
Indian Tennis Wizard Sania Mirza opens up on her professional journey and retirement
Indian Tennis Wizard looks back at her professional journey, and how she remembers it.
In a recent interaction Sania opens up on her professional journey.
For Sania Mirza, the Indian Tennis Wizard, her professional Journey has been incredible.
While growing up as a young girl, we didn’t really have any women tennis players in India to look up to. She recalls Steffi Graf as her role model and she just loved watching her play.
When she started playing tennis at the age of six, if somebody had told her that she would be the world number one (in women’s doubles) in her sport, Win Grand Slam titles as well as medals for the country, she would have taken it with both hands.
While people should remember all these achievements, she also want them to think of her as someone who was always true to herself. She wants to be remembered as someone who tried to do the right things and always stood up for what was right, be it on the tennis court or outside it.
How challenging was it for her to balance such a competitive sport and motherhood?
Sania feels that Life is all about pushing the boundaries and finding the right balance. She feels grateful for having such a supportive family, team and friends who have helped her in this journey. One of the reasons why she made a comeback to competitive tennis after motherhood was that she wanted to set an example for all the wonderful working moms.
She wanted to show that life doesn’t get over just because you become a mother. A mother can still follow her own dreams and balance everything.
Post retirement, what she looks forward to the most?
Fun to wake up without her alarm clock going of.
Sania’s message to the new generation of women athletes is
to never let anyone tell them that they can’t achieve something. No matter how many odds are against them , and whether someone before them have done it or not, they should always back their abilities and believe in themselves.
Is her son Izhaan inclined towards tennis too?
According to Sania, he loves playing all kinds of sports and it keeps changing every week. He loves playing football, tennis, and swimming. Right now, it seems he is in love with badminton!
Finally it will be interesting to know what made the Martina Hingis-Sania Mirza pair so successful?
Sania thinks that both she and Martina were able to consolidate each other’s strengths and were good at hiding each other’s weaknesses. The duo combined well together and the fact that they got along well even off the court also helped.
Apart from honing their skills, how important was it for young sportspersons to focus on mental training?
Young sportspersons need to be aware of who they are and what they need. The kind of emotional and mental strain it takes to become a professional athlete is immense and there is a lot of pressure. So, one must be aware and seek help from people who can put things into perspective. Sania loves to tell young athletes to believe in themselves because sometimes, self-belief is lacking. At times, you must be your own biggest cheerleader.
There have been times when she was targeted by trolls.
Did it ever bother her?
In no way it bothered her.
Infact, trolls are so irrelevant to her that she doesn’t even like to acknowledge them.
News Input K.V.Raman
