Eulogised, feted, doubted and criticised — Sania Mirza’s life is an example of a girl with a dream reaching her goal, overcoming all odds.
The 29-year-old’s battle on court — and with fringe elements off it — is the stuff legends are made of. Whether an innocuous picture of Sania putting her leg up after a match, a comment about pre-marital sex, the length of her skirt, or even her marrying a Pakistani cricketer, Sania has been at the receiving end of all sorts of criticism. Taking on allegations over her irreverent behaviour with the same strength as her killer forehand, Sania is an example of how an icon is trivialised into an object of public scrutiny.
In Ace Against Odds , Sania tells the readers of her bittersweet memories and the struggles she overcame to achieve her dreams.
Propelled into the big league at a very young age, Sania says she was aware about what she lacked and quickly learnt what she needed to sustain herself on tour. From becoming India’s No.1 woman tennis player to being the World No.1 in the women’s doubles with Swiss legend Martina Hingis, controversy has dogged her career.
The Tennis superstar is candid in her admissions and open to speak her mind, a virtue that ensures she is a youth icon in a cricket-crazy country. Ushering in a renewed interest in tennis among aficionados and fans, Sania is instrumental in bringing in crowds to tennis matches.
Sania says that she quickly understood that people were uncompromising when it came to criticising icons — maybe a trait typical to a society short on tolerance and high on moralistic turpitude.
Upward climb
Her journey from a junior player to a Grand Slam winner is one strewn with pain and glory. Nagging injuries and the toll that the circuit took on her body forced her to quit the singles format in 2012.
More than the injuries, it was the media circus that hurt her the most. Thrust into fame at a very young age, Sania says she dealt with the glitz, lights and starstruck fans with ease, but when things got personal, the media was unrelenting in invading her privacy, pummelling her with innuendos. Her bittersweet relationship with media and the constant tours left her with just a handful of friends, a group that backed her through thick and thin. But what gave her emotional strength was the rock solid backing from her father Imran Mirza and the innumerable sacrifices by her mother Nasima.
The entry of Shoaib Malik into her life brought a refreshing change and, of course, the media, which painted her an anti-national for picking a Pakistani cricketer. She and her family were virtually under house arrest as the media invaded every bit of privacy the family had.
What followed next changed her life forever. This excerpt narrates this event:
It would not be wrong to say that for almost two weeks the media went berserk. About two hundred newsmen armed with cameras and microphones, files and pens, camped outside our house and hounded every guest and family member as they entered or left. A dozen satellite vans were parked in the lane, beaming inconsequential footage of the house and the visitors. Cameras were fixed at all angles and were recording round the clock. Camera crews had bagged strategic positions on buildings around the house to gain a 360-degree perspective. If a curtain at a window moved even an inch, exposing one of my family members or me doing mundane chores in the house, some news channel thought it important to telecast the image to viewers with super-imaginative interpretations. It was totally bizarre and unexpected!
On one of those days, amidst all the madness, my father got a frantic call from a relative who sounded hysterical. ‘Is Sania wearing a green T-shirt?’ he questioned. When my dad answered it in the affirmative, he almost screamed, ‘Draw your curtains! There are cameras fixed on the next-door building that’s under construction and news channels are showing her live right now!’
I did not see sunlight for about ten days. All the windows, even the small vents in the bathrooms, had to be covered. Even the smallest of peepholes were being used by the media to beam images. Going out to the balcony for a breather was asking for trouble.
Thrust into the limelight, Mirza found benign support from another Indian tennis ace and mixed double’s partner, Mahesh Bhupathi. It was after consultations with him that Sania decided to skip a WTA tournament at Bengaluru.
What followed was a trial by the media on the reasons of her pull-out. It was during this period that WTA chief executive Larry Scott arranged a special conference with Ari Fleischer to give Sania tips to handle media.
But the question remains, would a male Indian tennis star have to go through such incongruous acrimony?
Title: Ace against Odds
Author: Sania Mirza with Imran Mirza and Shivani Gupta
Publisher: Harper Collins
Price: Rs 499
Pages: 238