There’s an oft-repeated line from Sania Mirza, says Ankita Raina, that “has stayed with me”. Mirza, to paraphrase, mentions that even when one woman or lady in India is impressed by her journey, she would really feel content material.
One?
How about wrestler Vinesh Phogat, who’d tweeted thanking Mirza “for instructing a whole technology of younger Indian ladies learn how to dream, I used to be one in every of them”? How about cricketer Smriti Mandhana, who known as her an “inspiration for a lot of to select up a sport and champion it”? How about a whole technology of tennis gamers in India, particularly girls, who picked up a racquet after Mirza laid down the marker?
Ask Raina, 30, India’s present prime singles professional. Or Aishwarya Jadhav, the 14-year-old from Kolhapur who was the India No 1 in her age group final yr. Or Lenien Jamir, the 21-year-old from Nagaland presently taking part in US collegiate tennis for Monmouth College for whom Mirza was a “enormous function mannequin”. Or the numerous different Indian feminine gamers plying on the assorted circuits with the psychological picture of Mirza shattering norms with that cracking forehand.
Rising up in a middle-class household in Ahmedabad, a 12-year-old Raina vividly remembers the information flash from 2005 on her TV: Sania Mirza vs Serena Williams on the Australian Open.
“It was a giant factor for Indian tennis,” Raina says. “At that time I wasn’t conscious of the type of challenges she had been via to get there, however what I picked up watching that information was that I too needed to play in that area sooner or later.
“Simply the truth that she was No 1 within the nation, and really the perfect, impressed me.”
Jadhav wasn’t born when that match was performed, having needed to depend on YouTube movies to look at her two idols share the court docket. The primary time the younger woman from a small city heard of Mirza’s title was via an harmless query to her father when she’d simply began taking part in tennis. “I requested him who from India performs this sport. He mentioned, ‘Sania Mirza. She is the one one who has achieved a lot in singles and doubles’,” Jadhav remembers.
The one one, until date. No singles participant from India, feminine or male, has gone near Mirza’s 2007 career-high singles rating of world No 27 since. No singles feminine participant from India has competed in a Grand Slam important draw since Mirza on the 2012 Australian Open.
Not that Mirza is a lone ranger in Indian tennis. In 2012, upon Mirza’s suggestion, the All India Tennis Affiliation introduced the prize cash of the ladies’s singles nationwide champion on par with the boys’s singles winner, a precedent nonetheless adopted on the Fenesta Open Nationals. Earlier this month in Dubai, she had hitting classes with Indian professional Karman Kaur Thandi and junior Yuvan Nandal.
A few years in the past when nationwide lockdowns crippled journey, Mirza requested Raina – her Tokyo Olympics doubles associate – to stay in Dubai, keep at her place and prepare along with her earlier than India’s Billie Jean King Cup World Group play-offs tie in Latvia (the 2 had gained the important thing deciding tie in 2020 to get India that spot for the primary time ever).
“It was so type of her to ask me then,” Raina says. “I noticed a very totally different facet of her at house. She’s so chill and humorous, and she or he’s bought nice humour. Simply seeing how she is with everybody at house was heart-warming, and attending to spend that type of time along with her was a memorable expertise.”
Additionally left richer with expertise was Jadhav after her visits to the Sania Mirza Tennis Academy in Hyderabad for home tournaments. Mirza wouldn’t be round, however her mom typically turned tale-teller. “She would inform us tales about Sania’s struggles when she was younger and the way she overcame lack of services and rose via such challenges,” Jadhav says.
Jamir picked up the game rising up in Mokokchung, Nagaland, and surrounded by individuals asking her “if I used to be going to be the following Sania”. Restricted tennis services in Nagaland compelled her to shift to Assam, for which she was the U-16 and U-18 state No 2 earlier than taking over the scholarship within the New Jersey college. “Even when individuals within the NorthEast didn’t know a lot about tennis, they certainly knew Sania and equated tennis along with her,” Jamir says. “She’s had such a terrific affect on Indian tennis that her title is mainly synonymous with the game.”
Jadhav performed a junior event at Wimbledon final yr, on the identical greens the place Mirza lifted the 2015 doubles title. The Kolhapur child hasn’t met Mirza but, however hopes to quickly. “I’ve all the time questioned how she managed when she was younger and didn’t have the services that we do now. I wish to ask her that,” she says.
It’s the type of conversations Mirza is trying ahead to having with Indian feminine athletes in her post-professional tennis life. It’s additionally why she agreed to tackle the mentorship function of the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) franchise within the Girls’s Premier League.
“When this dialog with RCB got here up, I’ve watched plenty of cricket and it’s in my household, however I do know nothing concerning the sport. They mentioned that’s not what we would like you for; the type of stress you’ve confronted within the final 20 years, we would like you to assist these ladies deal with the sudden highlight they’ve been put below. I assumed, properly, that’s one thing proper up my alley,” Mirza says.
“I wish to assist the following technology of athletes, notably younger girls athletes, as a result of I feel male athletes have lots of people to look as much as.”
Mirza, the excellent tennis participant and outspoken individual, stands a tall determine in that small pattern for the previous.
“Sania introduced India on the world map, and never simply in tennis,” Raina says. “She gave Indian girls the idea that we will tackle the world and in addition made Indian girls gamers consider that we will carry out on the highest degree.”
“Going ahead,” Jadhav says, “I too wish to attempt to be like Sania.”