Sania is style icon for Bangalore youth

By Manjusha R Deccan Herald News Service Bangalore:
The gutsy Mirza, with oodles of confidence and attitude, is inspiring a lot of children in the City to take up the racquet.

She’s got attitude. She has no qualms about being aggressive on court and her never-say-die attitude has floored millions of teenagers across India. And closer home in Bangalore, teenage tennis sensation Sania Mirza has a new fan following.

The latest entrants to this scene are the City’s tennis coaches, budding sport aspirants and their parents who are busy hailing Mirza as the best thing to have happened to the sport.

Five of the major tennis academies in the City vouch that Sania Mirza is the role model for all those girls who are enrolling for tennis lessons. Of course, Sania is a fashion icon for them. According to Krishna Bhupathi, father of Mahesh Bhupathi, the number of girls enrolling for the game of tennis at the Bhupathi Tennis Village in Hebbal has increased by more than 100 per cent ever since Sania Mirza emerged as a tennis star. “Last December, 34 children had enrolled into our academy, and most of them were boys. But this year, the figure has touched 75, with more than 60 per cent of them being girls,” said Bhupathi, a former coach of Sania Mirza.With Sania winning laurels for the country, the confidence level of budding professionals has also seen a steep rise.

According to chief coach of Karnataka State Lawn Tennis Association B M Ramesh, there is also a definite change in the mindset of the students who enroll. “The seriousness towards the sport has increased.

“Of late, I have students demanding rigorous tennis lessons, wanting to be another Sania. Hopefully, the dropout rate among teenagers, which is usually high, will be brought down,” he said.

Incidentally, even the number of tennis training camps in the City has seen a spurt, from 6 to 12.

The advent of Sania Mirza has brought about a subtle change in the attitude of female students, said tennis coach of Kinesis Tennis Training Krishna Kumar.

“Most girls by nature are not blatantly aggressive. But after watching Sania Mirza strike unapologetically, they want to play hard and mean,” he said.

The male to female ratio in his academy has also changed from 70:30 to 60:40, which is a remarkable improvement, Kumar said.

Dinesh Reddy, former national-level player and now a professional coach, said that even pep talks have been peppered generously with “If Sania can do it, so can you!”

State-level player Archana Venkatraman, 26, admits that Sania Mirza in many ways is showing the way for all budding tennis stars and fast becoming a “source of inspiration”. “She has both charisma and talent rolled into one,” she added.

Fashion icon

It is not just her sporting prowess that has Mirza fans enthralled. Even her T-shirts with bold statements emblazoned on them, the cluster of earrings and the inimitable nose ring, are being emulated by teens for the so-called ‘cool factor’.

T-shirts a rage

A die-hard Sania fan Shashikala, 18, who is all set to play a national level tournament in Delhi, admits that even her T-shirts and the way she conducts herself is being tailored on the gutsy Sania Mirza.

“I have funky T-shirts with attitude written all over it,” Shashikala gushed.

“Sania has made us realise that we too can make it big on the international tennis circuit. I hope to set a similar trend,” said 14-year-old Sphoorthi.

“I admire her as a person and as a player and more importantly, I love her killer attitude,” said Aditi J B.

Some parents in the City see a Sania in their own children. Mrs Anuradha Ram, who has recently enrolled her seven-year-old child into a tennis camp, hopes that her daughter would strike it big too.