Meet India's Top 7 Young Sportswomen

With great physical endurance and sheer force of will, this league of under-30 sportswomen is scoring big. Vatsala Chhibber and Mamta Mody keep track.

- Vatsala Chibber and Mamta Mody

Sania Mirza, 28

Tennis

Earlier this year, Sania Mirza handed the final version of her untitled autobiography to her publisher, only to make major edits soon after. “Every time I think I’m finished, there are new chapters to add,” she says. “I now have to write about everything that happened after January.” These extra pages might carry the most thrilling parts of a book that’s crowded with landmark victories — where Mirza, alongside childhood hero Martina Hingis, lands on top of global rankings in April and gets her hands on the Wimbledon Ladies' Doubles Trophy in July. She does it all over again two months later at the US Open. No Indian woman has ever come close.

The Hyderabad native, who took up the sport at the age of six, has another, equally rare achievement to her credit. She made sports cool. And she made sports cool for women. In the first year that Mirza began to compete professionally, she bagged the Wimbledon Girls’ Doubles Title (2003), and the world took notice of this bright talent. They were surprised to find a self-assured teenager who didn’t speak in clichés, didn’t control the eye-rolling and was happy to discuss fashion. She also looked great on posters. “They weren’t ready for someone strong, opinionated and sarcastic,” says Mirza. “But I was only 17, I had to grow up very fast.” Her successes were quick, significant and marked by superlatives — first Indian woman to win a Grand Slam title, India’s most successful female tennis player, first female South Asian to be appointed a UN Women Goodwill Ambassador.