If she’s acing it on the court, World No 1 tennis player (doubles) appears to be playing the right shots off it too. Sania Mirza, who has just turned writer with her autobiography Ace Against Odds, has been roping in the biggest names from Bollywood to launch her book. After Shah Rukh Khan launched it in Hyderabad, she got Bollywood’s very own “Sultan” for the Mumbai leg of the launch. Salman and Sania go back a long way, and at the launch the superstar spoke highly of her and how their camaraderie has stood the test of time. “People don’t achieve what she has in three lifetimes,” Salman said. “I think she had a lot to say. So before she forgot what she had to say, she decided to write it down,” he added with a cheeky grin. Post the launch in an interview with DC, the tennis ace spoke at length about her journey this far.
From a bookworm to a Tennis pro:
Were it not for Sania Mirza’s principal in school, we wouldn’t have had a sports star today. “I was a brilliant student and my principal had to push me to play a tournament because I did not want to miss my lectures. I was a bookworm and I have always excelled in my studies. When I won the U-14 and U-16 Nationals tournament, it was a turning point for me. I’m a very competitive person and that kind of fed my passion. That’s when I knew I wanted to be a tennis player, while my cousins were all doctors. They’d see my tan lines and say to me, ‘you are so lucky, you get to go out and play.’ For them it was ‘play’ but for me it was hard work.”
Proving naysayers wrong:
Sania’s rise to the top hasn’t been smooth, but time and again the tennis superstar has proved no hurdle is too big for a focussed mind. “Some roadblocks are hard, while some are simply relatives getting worried about who will marry me if I continue to play in the sun and become dark-skinned. A girl here will be at the receiving end of a remark like ‘tu sawli hain’ or ‘she is good looking but she is sawli’. I get to hear that a lot to this day.” Sania continues, “Then there are obstacles like playing with no proper facilities or infrastructure because no one at that point believed that you would turn into a World No. 1 player. Forget that title, nobody believed you would be a professional in the first place. People would tell me, ‘You think you’ll become Martina Hingis?’ And now she (Martina) and
I do so much together.”
Lucky or not:
When asked if she feels lucky to be able to continue her profession after marriage, Sania says, “I won’t use the word ‘lucky’. I don’t think it’s ‘lucky’ to be able to do that. Why does a woman have to stop playing? But yes, I’m lucky to have a husband who is following his profession as well and has no problems with me following mine, because that was never a part of the discussion.
A tell-all:
Co-written by her father Imran Mirza, along with sports journalist Shivani Gupta, Sania feels that the book has touched upon almost all the important areas in her life. She confesses that she was reluctant to reveal some bits. “I’m not comfortable sharing my emotions, so it was hard writing about my marriage and dating Shoaib. But I have tried to be as open as I could.”
More to come?
Rumour mills were abuzz that Farah Khan would be making a biopic, can we expect one soon? “People assume that she is making this film because they see us hanging out often. Farah is a good friend, but I think we had only one serious discussion about it. Right now there is nothing to get excited about.” Ask her about a second part to her autobiography and she says, “We will see if there are more things worth writing about. This book does give me the scope to write another one. I’m not planning to retire anytime soon, so hopefully there will be more things to share and write about.”
