Sania Mirza pushing tennis to greater heights in Dubai
Former Wimbledon doubles champion Sania Mirza, who lives in Dubai with her cricketer husband Shoaib Malik and her young son, will never forget playing on a tennis court made from cow dung in her native Hyderabad in South India. And if that wasn’t sobering, she also remembers being rejected for being “too small” while trying to enroll in a tennis academy with animal waste surface.
“I don’t want any six-year-old today to play on cow dung courts. I want tennis to move forward,” said Mirza in an interview with Gulf News.
But she isn’t someone who just moans about it, she went on to do something concrete. After achieving sporting glory on the world stage and becoming one of India’s most beloved and famous stars in tennis, Mirza paid it forward by launching a plush fully-functional tennis academy in Hyderabad. Recently, she also launched two new eponymous tennis centres in Dubai’s Al Mankhool and Jumeirah Lake Towers symbolising a brand new chapter in her life.
“I don’t know anything else besides playing tennis and that’s all I want to embark on. I want to give back. When I look back at my journey, I can only be grateful for everything that I have been able to achieve … From playing in cow dung courts to winning Wimbledon, I feel very grateful,” said Mirza.
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The 35-year-old tennis champion, who is one of India’s biggest style icons, looks around her newly-opened tennis academy in Al Mankhool and feels a sense of reflected pride at being able to re-invent herself in a field that’s she so familiar with.
“Dubai is my second home and it has been one for a very long time. I want to bring a sport like tennis to everyday life … Tennis is too much of an elite sport. We still push our kids towards cricket, especially if they are boys … I want that to change a little,” said Mirza.
Mirza it will be recalled was a household name in Nigeria in the days of Heineken Futures and Ogbe Hard court in Benin, climbing the ladder of success in tennis. Unfortunately those tournaments that tended to put Nigeria’s name on the map have gone under no thanks to absence of sponsorships. Some stakeholders however blamed it on corruption which includes inflation of tournament budget among other vices.