Grand Stand

A stroke of her strong forehand is enough to silence critics, self-proclaimed moral police and faceless trolls. Sania Mirza is unafraid to be herself, on court and off it.

- Nidhi Raj Singh

A busy time for Sania Mirza, we have been told, after repeated working and reworking of dates, she has finally been able to fly down to Mumbai from Hyderabad before she sets off for the US Open. Call time is 6am and it looks like Sania has happily jogged her way to the photo shoot. Neither bleary eyed nor vexed.

Sania is an epitome of calmness even as we frantically put together the looks. This is the Sania all of us know, calm and collected… irrespective of whether she is on a winning spree or not, whether she is hailed for her seemingly unconventional choices or is questioned for them. “As a professional tennis player, I compete every day, every week. It would get arduous to celebrate every victory and mull over every defeat,” Sania puts everything into perspective.

There is nothing dramatic about her demeanour. There is no air fisting on winning or rolling down of tears on losing, unlike Mike Tyson, whose autobiography she has just finished reading. “I do say a little prayer before stepping onto the court,” the world’s No. 7 doubles player says. Much less dramatic is her answer when we ask her about what happens at home when she watches matches where India plays against Pakistan with her cricketer husband, Shoaib Malik. She replies, “Nothing!” And we believe her. An unapologetically fierce Sania feels that marriage has calmed her down.

The power couple of sports, who tied the knot in 2010, don’t exchange notes on each other’s performance on the pitch or on the court. “We don’t understand the technicalities of each other’s sport, but we do discuss the mental aspects of them.”

Her love story is linked directly to her other love…food. “We met in a restaurant when he was playing in Hobart, Tasmania,” she recalls. They had met socially a couple of times before that, but it was in Australia that things took an exciting turn.