Having watched her in action a countless times as she almost seemed to dance across the court in her varied tournaments, a multitude of emotions playing across her face, her body language a mirror of her inner thoughts and seen her in animated conversation with news channels, I look forward to meeting a girl who on the power of her play and personality carved her own niche in the mind of a nation, particularly its youth.

Seeing her upfront and personal at the Maratha Suite in the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower, it is easy to perceive how well Sania, the girl has morphed into Sania, the woman. Smiling, after the initial introductions are done, she says, “I am a very relaxed person – this is me – I like to be in tracks or pyjamas and a T-shirt.” For those uninitiated in the world of sports and the off-court plays of players, a few weeks ago India’s top ranking women’s tennis player had been willy-nilly dragged into the Olympics pairing controversy that had erupted when the aces Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes had voiced their desire to play in the men’s doubles with the same player, Rohan Bopanna. Stretching out her long legs, Sania emphasises, “It’s an honour for me to play with either Leander or Mahesh. My problem was how I was treated. To pacify someone I was being given as a partner to him and that’s not how it works. I am glad I spoke out because almost every single person whom I have met has told me that what I said was right. It just needed the guts to be said. Of course, it was a very ugly situation and it strained relations between many of us. That was not very nice. We have to look at the positives I guess and the biggest positive is going to the Olympics.”

Taking a stand for what she believes in comes naturally to Sania. As it did to her mother Naseema Mirza years ago when Sania’s first coach initially felt she was too small to enroll in the training programme. When her mom stood her ground, he relented only to inform her father Imran Mirza later, “I don’t think I’ve seen a six-year-old actually connect with the ball, the first time she tried to hit it!”

The rest as they say is history and the career of India’s first iconic female player began to take shape. Rewinding to the early days spent travelling and studying, the firebrand Sania says, “I did not get into trouble at school. I was not all that naughty. My sister has those genes. I was actually very studious as a kid and don’t think I ever got punished. I used to cry if I got less than 90 per cent until I was in my seventh or eighth standard – that is when I started travelling more. In fact, one of the reasons I did not want to pursue tennis was I did not want my 100 per cent attendance record to be spoiled.”

Young Sania whose appeal had begun to grow beyond her home town Hyderabad was catapulted into the limelight after her junior Wimbledon win. “I think it was a mix of many factors – the fact that I was a girl, everyone knew what Wimbledon was,” she says. “When I returned, there was an absolute uproar.”

Sania does not feel the undue attention affected her play in any way. In fact she admits, “I have no regrets that I was famous at such a young age because I think everyone wants to be recognised. But at the same time being in the limelight is very tough. Everything you say and do is scrutinised – especially when you are a girl and you come from a place like Hyderabad. At that time Hyderabad was a small place – it was not like growing up in a Mumbai or a Delhi. I was from a Muslim background and to come up and be talked about for whatever you did – the way you spoke, the way you walked for the last 10 years and more, has been challenging.”

What helped Sania was the fact that her family – immediate and extended – was very supportive and did not object to her travels, mixed company or her attire. In fact, remembering one concern she laughs out loud: “My aunt told my mother that she should stop me from playing as I would get dark and she would not be able to find anyone to marry me. But never did my parents tell me that I should not wear this or I should not do that. I always did what I wanted to. We came from a liberal background but obviously being a Muslim family it was a bit different.”

Tennis, as all of us know, is not an easy sport to follow. And Sania admits her parents did face problems rustling up the funds she needed, but she is grateful that “my parents never made that obvious to me. We did not come from an extremely rich background but I don’t remember a time when I said I needed something and my mother said she could not afford it. We used to at one point try and save up on food – every little penny counted”.

Although Sania admits that there is a wall beyond which she does not let the public or the world in, she states that she does not hesitate to let the world and its people know if she feels strongly about something. Her stand has often been confused for arrogance and attitude and to that comment she ripostes, “I think it’s different from arrogance or attitude to have your own opinion. You do not see that very often in India from people who are in the public eye. They say what they think is correct. I’ve been brought up to be very honest, to stand up for what I believe in. My parents have the confidence that they have taught us what is right and they have never stopped me from saying or doing anything that I felt was correct. Whether it was the controversy that happened a few weeks ago or the one that happened seven years ago, as long as I thought I was being true to myself that was enough for me. I have never said anything demeaning or insulting to other people. It’s always been about my point of view about things. So I was never scared to speak up even though sometimes it got me into trouble. I didn’t do it for a reaction from people. I did it because I was asked a question and I said what I felt was true.”

Countless girls also watched what she wore with great interest while a few detractors said her focus on how she looked took away from her interest in the game. Her various rings, her pony tail, her skirts and more, invited comment. Few know that the tennis star who loves Hindi films was asked to do an item number in one of them. Laughingly saying she turned down that offer, Sania reminisces, “What happened with me – in terms of the fame I got – had not happened with anyone from another sport other than cricket for a very long time. The biggest thing everyone commented on was my T-shirts. Once I had lost a Wimbledon match and I came into the press conference crying. I had changed after the match and pulled on something without even noticing what the T-shirt was. The next day the line on it – ‘Well-behaved women rarely make history’ – was commented on as was the fact that I had slammed my racket.?I think it sort of became a fashion to get Sania into trouble for everything she said or did. It started off with the skirt and then it went on to everything else. They probably thought that this girl speaks fluent English and she is the one making news, so let’s pick on her. Anything I did they said was because I wanted attention or because I was a rebel. Even when I pierced my nose I was called a rebel. I had nothing to rebel against. But sometimes when your opinion doesn’t match with what others say or think or expect you to say, you become a rebel. And I think that obviously, I was a girl, I was outspoken and it hadn’t happened in a long time that a girl suddenly came out playing tennis in a skirt and said what she wanted. I think people were a bit surprised.”

Like all young girls who go through their growing up phases, Sania too went through her formative years seeking her sense of style. She states, “I always liked dressing up. There are some things I don’t feel comfortable wearing, which I don’t. But I’ve always liked looking nice. You know I think all girls like to look nice and dress up. It’s just that when you’re a public figure people notice what you wear and comment on it and say it’s good, bad or ugly.” The girl who idolises Steffi Graf herself is an icon to several young girls who want to be like her. Looking at her reflection in the mirror, aware that she is a role model to several youngsters, Sania says, “I can’t lie – it felt great when little girls came up to me and said I want to play tennis because I like you or I want to be like you. I get Tweets saying my child dressed up as Sania Mirza in school today. But in India it’s not easy to be a sportsperson. There are a lot of expectations every time you’re stepping on the court. But you feel good and try to get the positives out of it.”

Sania took the highs and the lows in her stride, ignoring as many of the brickbats as she could. Till the flag episode really shook her equilibrium. She recalls, getting up and walking around the room to sit on the sofa, “That hurt me a lot. I was representing India at the Hopman Cup; I was wearing the Indian colours. I had finished a three-hour match and my legs were cramping badly. I was watching Rohan Bopanna play, sitting up at a height and about 20 feet below there was a flag. The funny part was I could not even see it. I put my feet up because the pain was bad and someone took a picture from below which made it seem as if my feet were pointing towards the tricolour. When I saw the picture in the paper the next day that was the first time I thought I don’t want to play anymore. I actually cried. I remember telling my father and Mahesh, ‘What is the point of it all!’”

The feeling of being ‘controversy’s child’ had reached its nadir. The gutsy girl, who had blazed her own way on courts, was hurt then by what had been said off them. She remarks, “It is easy to live with expectations. I can’t remember the time when I woke up and said today people don’t expect anything from me. If you lose, it’s the biggest tragedy; if you win you know you’re on top of the world. But that’s how it works here. People are very emotional about their stars. I always tell the cricketers all the time that there are 11 of them. I am one. I take all the blame, at least you guys can put it on each other! I mean I’ve always said we can’t promise medals but we do promise to give our 100 per cent and try to come back with whatever we can. Most important is to give our best shot and then the rest is up to God and destiny, I guess.”

Destiny kept her playing even though on several occasions she could have hung up her racket. Her body has had its wear and tear and two years ago she was not even sure if she could return to the game. Rolling her wrist she remarks, “At one time, I couldn’t even pick up a remote control, so playing tennis was out of the question. This was when we were getting married and I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t move my wrist to even eat. It was so painful and I had given up and I was like this is it. I had accepted it. Five months later I was just running like a maniac. I could not lift up anything so all I did was run. My parents told me to see another doctor, but with all my knee injuries I was fed up of treatments. Then Shoaib asked me to give it one last try and hit some balls. The next day I woke up and agreed. When I did go, that first day it didn’t hurt. I couldn’t believe it – I hit for 20 minutes and I said the pain is going to come back for sure. It didn’t make any sense. And then I began training. Over time, it obviously got better. Then being a sportsperson Shoaib told me to play in the Commonwealth Games. Being my husband – he is from another country – he knew what it meant to me. So that was my goal. That’s why winning those medals for me that year with the Commonwealth and the Asian Games was so very important. It was a perfect example of what happens when we have lows – we understand each other and we help each other out.”

Her marriage to a Pakistani had courted attention – and also because that had entailed some controversy involving another woman. The couple has a home in Dubai – but more often than not they are travelling for play. “The initial brouhaha all settled down soon,” she says. “But at that time we should have been enjoying the wedding and there was all this happening. I didn’t know what people had so much to talk about. We didn’t put the television on, we were indoors for a week; we didn’t come out of the house. The media attention was tough. The curtains were drawn in our home – we didn’t see daylight for six days in a row. One night we went out to have ice cream and people said we did not care what was going on. Once the wedding happened, no one had anything to say.”

For Shoaib and Sania it was not love at first sight. Though they met often for a variety of reasons, there were no sparks initially – it all happened gradually. “He is extremely simple and I love that about him,” says Sania. “He has been the captain of a national cricket team and you know what that means in India and Pakistan. He is so oblivious to certain things which is I think a great quality in him. He does not think that anyone will ever do anything bad to him or harm him if he hasn’t done anything to them. It’s a mad world out there and you want to be the first in everything. He is the most laidback individual you will ever find. But as a person if someone tells me I have to do this, I have to do it right now.”

Sania has come to terms with herself – her goals, her life defined by who she is. Her moves – as she follows photographer Joy Datta’s directions – are fluid…to an extent minimal – each expression flowing easily. Whether she grabs a medal or not at the Olympic Games, this is a woman who knows her own strengths which according to her are “my family and my husband. But, I am also very stubborn and that works as my strength and weakness. If I want to do something – I could be completely wrong – I’ll do it. I’ve always been this way.”

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