Snaps of Sania

Sania Mirza eyeing top 15 spot

Having gone beyond her stated goal of breaking into top-50 in world rankings in her debut season, teen tennis sensation Sania Mirza is now eyeing a spot among the top 15.

"Yes, I am trying to break into top-15. I think I can reach the top-10 but in what time span I can't say," said Sania, who was in the Pink City for the shooting of an ad.

The player, who was accompanied by her mother Naseema, was also candid about the grey areas of her game. "Yes, I find some grey areas in my game especially my service and endurance need improvement," she said.

When asked about her preparations for the Australian Open, she said her father had roped in Australian coach Tony Roche to work upon her service and now she was in hunt for a trainer who could help improve her endurance.
"I realise I have to improve upon my fitness to excel at the top level," said Sania while clarifying that her strained back which forced her out of Thailand Open in second round, was not a serious matter.

Sania was later honoured at Jaipur Club.

Roche to train Sania Mirza

High-profile tennis coach Tony Roche, associated with the likes of world number one Roger Federer, will train Sania Mirza in her build-up to the Australian Open early next year.
The Australian great would work on specific areas of weaknesses in Sania's game, particularly her serve, as the 18-year-old Hyderabadi starts the new season from an event which catapulted her to the big league.
It was at the Australian Open last year Sania shot into limelight, becoming the first Indian woman ever to reach the third round of any Grand Slam.
Sania will start training in late December after a short winter break. She will train with Roche for three weeks in Sydney, Sania's father Imran Mirza said.
He said it was only after former Indian Davis Cupper Jaideep Mukherjea put in a word that Roche agreed to take up the assignment.

British magazine says Sania Mirza can change the world

The usually staid British media has gone overboard with praise for Indian tennis sensation Sania Mirza with a leading intellectual magazine listing her as one of the 10 people capable of changing the world.When Sania made waves at Wimbledon this year, tennis writers waxed lyrical about her poise and skills on and off the court.

Now 'New Statesman', the high priest of British left-of-centre politics - some call it the symbol of intellectual fundamentalism - has declared that Sania has the promise to 'change the world'.In an almost breathless 750-word piece on Sania, writer Jason Cowley recounts her recent tiff with Muslim clerics over her dress code on the court, but moves on to describe the effect she has on India's young men and women - especially women."Mirza has the discipline, the tenacity, the flamboyance and, above all, the talent to go much higher in the rankings and, in so doing, inspire a whole new generation of Indian girls to express their hopes and ambitions through sport."At home, in India, Mirza is a role model and an icon, her fame locating her somewhere between Bollywood and the mass adulation that surrounds the Indian cricket team", Cowley wrote.

The piece recalled that at Wimbledon, she wore a T-shirt bearing the slogan: "Well-behaved women rarely make history"; at the US Open in September, where she lost in the quarter-final to the Russian sensation Maria Sharapova, her T-shirt read: "You can either agree with me, or be wrong".Recalling the threats from a Muslim cleric of the Sunni Ulema Board, Cowley wrote: "The cleric is correct in identifying the world-transforming potential of a young, attractive, articulate and media-smart teenage Muslim tennis star, but wrong in his assessment of that influence. "He understands how sport has become a common language for the global tribe, as well as an engine of change, an aggressive symbol of meritocracy and the mirror in which we see reflected back at us the competitive, style-driven, money- and celebrity-fixated world in which we live. "Tennis is one of the few sports in which women enjoy parity with men; female tennis players are among the wealthiest and most celebrated of all sports personalities.

"Can Mirza have a similarly transformative effect, not only in India but also throughout the world? He enthuses, "She may not have won a major tournament, yet already she occupies a role through which flow many of the most significant intellectual and cultural currents of our times: the clash between secularism and political Islam, the emancipation of women in the Muslim world, the dominance of celebrity, the tyranny of the image, the emergence of India as a world power".Cowley concludes by writing: "If she continues to improve as rapidly as she has over the past six months, Sania Mirza will simply have to get used to such obsessive scrutiny. There is no turning back now."

Sania Mirza

It is difficult to believe that a slender, 18-year-old Muslim tennis player from India has the potential to change the world, but it is equally difficult to overestimate the effect Sania Mirza is having on millions of young men and women, and especially women, in the world's second most populous country. She is the first female Indian tennis player to be ranked in the world's top 40; indeed, she is the first significant female athlete of any kind, in a country where women have been typically discouraged from taking up sport. Mirza has the discipline, the tenacity, the flamboyance and, above all, the talent to go much higher in the rankings and, in so doing, inspire a whole new generation of Indian girls to express their hopes and ambitions through sport.

At home, in India, Mirza is a role model and an icon, her fame locating her somewhere between Bollywood and the mass adulation that surrounds the Indian cricket team. She is celebrated as much for her attitude and fashion sense (she wears a nose-ring and "librarian" glasses) as she is for her talent. She evidently enjoys the attention and delights in confounding expectations of exactly how a young Muslim woman from the subcontinent should behave. At Wimbledon, she wore a T-shirt bearing the slogan: "Well-behaved women rarely make history"; at the US Open in September, where she lost in the quarter-final to the Russian sensation Maria Sharapova, her T-shirt read: "You can either agree with me, or be wrong".

All this means that Mirza is in ceaseless demand - for interviews, billboard advertising, endorsements (her fee is reported to be second only to the great batsman Sachin Tendulkar's) and television appearances. But already she is becoming something of a prisoner of her own celebrity in a rapidly modernising country of more than a billion people. She can no longer even leave the Hyderabad home she shares with her parents without the obligatory bodyguards.

Sania pulls out of Thailand Open

India's Sania Mirza pulled out of the second round of the Thailand Open today with a back problem.

The world number 31, who was playing world number 186 Meng Yuan of China, had lost the first set 5-7.

The extent of the injury is not known as yet, but clearly the pain was too much for her to continue.

Sania has also pulled out of the doubles where she and Israel's Sahar Peer were to play the second round match today.

Earlier, Sania had written in a newspaper column that this event in Bangkok would probably be her last tournament this year.

Sania Mirza jumps to 31 in WTA rankings

Sania Mirza has jumped six places to climb to a career-best 31 in the latest WTA rankings after her semi-final appearance at the Japan Open last week.

Sania, who picked 311 points last week in the USD 170,000 Japan Open, has a total of 966.50 WTA points to her credit.

The 18-year-old had vanquished higher ranked opponents including top seed Vera Zvonareva in the Tier III Championship but ran out of steam in the semifinals, losing to France's Tatiana Golovin 2-6, 4-6.

Sania in semis, upsets top seed - Japan Open

Sania Mirza stormed into the semi-final of the USD 170,000 AIG Japan Open tennis championship today after upsetting the top seed Vera Zvonareva of Russia in a three-setter.
Sania, seeded eight, fought her way back after losing the first set 5-7 against the 22-ranked Russian to wrap up the next two 6-2 6-4.
She will now meet the winner of the quarter final contest between third seed Tatiana Golovin of France and Japan's Ai Sugiyama, seeded fifth.
Sania Mirza had yesterday defeated Aiko Nakamura 6-1 6-4 in the second round while Zvonareva beat Shahar Peer of France 6-3 7-5 to make it to the last eight.

“First” on her sleeve

Sania Mirza, 18 year old, tennis star from Hyderabad, has many “first” on her sleeve:

1. first ever Indian to break into the top-50 WTA rankings. ( career best WTA rank 34)
2. first Indian to reach the third round of Australian Open and thepre- quarters of the US Open.
3. became the youngest-ever Indian, male or female, to win a Tour event and the first woman from India to capture a WTA Tour title in the Hyderabad Open trophy in February 2005, defeating Alyona Bondarenko of Ukraine.
4. First Indian woman tennis player to get an ARJUNA award in 2005, for the year 2004.