Amanpreet Singh
Dubai | Tennis is and will remain a significant aspect of Sania Mirza's life but the legendary player says that not treating the sport as the be-all and end-all gave her the freedom to unleash her aggressive game every time she stepped on court.
Sania, who is bidding adieu to the game, says she never had the fear of losing in her heart because it makes a player defensive.
The 36-year-old conjured up wins against one the best players of her era -- then US Open champion Svetlana Kuznetsova, Swiss legend Martina Hingis, Nadia Petrova, and Flavia Penneta.
Although she lost her singles matches to the legends of the game -- Serena Williams and Venus Williams -- she put up a decent fight when she was pitted against the American sisters."What made me that aggressive and that mindset was of actually not having the fear of losing," Sania told PTI in an interview.
"For me, tennis was always and is always going to be a very, very large and big and important part of my life, but it is not my entire life. And that is the mindset I went with, even as a young girl and as a professional athlete. The worst that can happen is that you can lose a tennis match and then come back and try again.
It's just losing
a tennis match
As an athlete you work to get as many wins under your belt as possible and such a risky style would not let you do that.
Since she was always prepared to lose matches, did the defeats affect Sania? "No, they affected me. But I always knew that was not the end of the world. It was just losing a tennis match."
The gift of forehand
The Indian ripped forehands from impossible-looking angles, a game style that brought much success in her almost two-decade long career in which she won three women's doubles Grand Slam trophies and as many mixed doubles titles.
So did it come naturally or she had to work to develop such a shot? "I think it was a bit of both. I think I was gifted with the timing. I was gifted with the way I struck the ball. But I think there was a lot of work that went into my grip. There was a lot of effort that went in to bringing variation into the shot.
Sania said her singles success gets overshadowed because of her doubles exploits.
"I got a lot of respect (because of doubles). I am very grateful for that. I had a great singles career. "I was not number one but I was top-30 which has not happened from our side of the world in a very long time. Never happened for women and even for men, the last person was Vijay (Amritraj) or Ramesh (Krishnan), it was a long haul, we had someone playing as top-30 singles player and I had good success.
"Then I moved on to the doubles because my body was not able to take it after three surgeries and it was a right call. Being number one in the world at whatever you do is amazing.
"It does not really matter what people say. It (success) looks much more in doubles because I was number one in doubles. In the fraternity there is lot of respect for each other."
The missed
Olympic medal
Sania has medals from many multi-sport big-ticket events like the CWG and the Asian Games but an Olympic medal eluded her. She came closest in 2016, when she and Rohan Bopanna competed in the bronze play-off, but lost to the Czech pair of Radek Stepanek and Lucie Hradceka.
"I am very content with what I have achieved. To represent India in four Olympics has been so so amazing. If I could have one moment back it would be that bronze medal match, or the match before that, when we played the semifinals."
