By John Satish K. NEW DELHI: She wears a nose ring, and several more on her ears, has a hint of baby fat, comes from a conservative Muslim family, and at 18 is well on her way to becoming a sports legend in India, a youth icon, and darling of the world press. With her poster-girl good looks, and a fiery forehand, Sania Mirza is not merely India's new youth icon; she is a rising star in world tennis, raking in accolades and awards and showing all signs of a brilliant future ahead. In the last 18 months, Mirza, whose face now sells everything from gasoline to tea and jewellery, has pushed her WTA (Women's Tennis Association) ratings from below 450 to 70. Among the performances that soared her ranking was Mirza's historic winning of the Hyderabad Open, becoming the first Indian woman to win a WTA event. And prompting Sports Illustrated's powerful Jon Wertheim to write: "How about a Player of the Week award for Sania Mirza?" That such questions would be asked about Sania Mirza has been written since she won the junior women's doubles final at the 2003 Wimbledon.
She began the year as an outsider sitting at No.166 in the WTA Tour rankings, which got her a wild card entry to the Australian Open this January. Once in Melbourne, she took it into her own hands to put Indian women's tennis on the world map. Surviving initial nerves, Sania overcame Cindy Watson 3-6, 6-3, 6-0 in the first round and then disposed of Petra Mandula 6-2, 6-1 in the second round. Nirupama Vaidyanathan was the only Indian to have gone up to the second round of a Grand Slam when she made it to the second round of the Australian Open in 1988. By now on unchartered territory, Sania came up against the formidable might of eventual title winner Serena Williams going down 1-6, 4-6. As she battled with Williams, point for point, Sania Mirza ingrained herself in the collective consciousness not only of audiences at home but spectators and tennis watchers around the globe. Next up was the Dubai Open, where Mirza found the giant killer in her. She beat Jelena Kostanic and Svetlana Kuznetsova, ranked 63rd and 4th, respectively, before being stopped by 19th ranked Jelena Jankovic in the quarterfinals.
A first round loss in the NASDAQ-100 Open later in March only brought to the surface the bitter fact that she had to stop playing for a while to rest her injured ankle and allow it to recuperate. Mirza had carried the chronic injury through all these tournaments but continued to battle both the pain barrier and opponents with the aid of painkillers. The forced break made her miss the Fed Cup where she was to captain India, but she sat on the sidelines nevertheless, cheering on her teammates. The young player, perhaps the only woman tennis player to sport a nose ring, returned to the action at the French Open, but distaste for the clay surface coupled with a scratchy comeback form resulted in a first round defeat. Mirza's form worries continued to plague her as she began the grass season (a surface that she likes best), with a first round loss at the DFS Classic in Birmingham.
Wimbledon, though, was another story. She clawed her way out of trouble in the first round only to face Svetlana Kuznetsova, a victim in the Dubai Open. With the stage set for the battle to resume, the setting couldn't have been bigger - Centre Court of Wimbledon - the most prestigious tennis venue in the world. Down 4-6 in the first set, and trailing in the second against the more experienced Kuznetsova, Mirza pushed the set to a tiebreak where she prevailed, only to go down fighting in the third and deciding set. Though she lost, Mirza had become the darling of the world press. Wrote The Guardian in an article titled "Magical Mirza: The Centre of Attention": "Mirza once again showed that she is very unusual. She...displayed a boldness, an articulacy and a love of the limelight which has brought predictions of a Bollywood career further down the line.
"...she handled the Centre Court occasion debut with characteristic flair, swiveling into brilliantly struck forehands with astonishing racket-head speed, gradually overcoming her nerves, recovering from her mistakes, making a dramatic surge at the finish, and handling bristling press conferences as though they were a natural extension of her life." The journey to centre court began as a six-year-old when she was turned away from a coaching camp for being too small. A month later, the confounded coach called her parents to say that he had not seen such talent and natural ability. Today, in India, multiple body piercing and all, Sania Mirza is a brand. In the tennis world, she is a new sensation, whose ascent is being watched very carefully as she attempts to fulfil her public vow of breaking into the top 50 by the end of this year. Recently, she was voted second only to Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan in an MTV poll to select India's youth icon. The great skill of this young Muslim girl from a conservative family in Hyderabad lies in the fact that - guided by Indian tennis champion Mahesh Bhupati (Wimbledon mixed doubles champion this year) - she is doing more than just playing great tennis. In the tradition of champions - she is winning hearts.
After her Wimbledon exit, a veteran commentator on BBC said: "Remember the name - Sania Mirza. We will hear a lot more of her." Declared The Times: "Centre Court will want to see more of the tempestuous teenager breaking the mould of the traditional Indian woman as well as records every time she steps on a court." As Sania Mirza brings to her list of endorsements the same acumen that she applies in hitting a forehand topspin winner, it is clear that this young girl, who defies conservative stereotypes with her micro-skirts and clinging T-shirts, has just begun her ascent. "It does not matter whether you are playing against the fifth seed or the 75th seed, what matters is putting in all your best and playing the game. Rankings keep changing, sometimes you are up, sometimes you are down," says Mirza. Clearly, she knows that its going to get more dizzying. --Indo-Asian News Service
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment