Sania Mirza Quotes

Playing for the country is an honour. The ultimate honour, in fact. If you want to look at it as pressure, you will find it very difficult to cope with the expectations of a billion people. I look at it as an opportunity, as being among the few who have been given this opportunity to make the country proud.

When she first emerged, she was celebrated as an example of how well religious integration was working in a country that has a Muslim president, a Sikh prime minister, and a Christian leader of its Congress party. The controversy over her clothes was seen as an absurdity by mainstream Muslim leaders.

Indian doubles tennis ace Sania Mirza recently achieved a career-best rank of number five in the world when the new Women’s Tennis Association doubles chart was released after the Wimbledon Championships concluded in July 2014.

With her diamond nose stud and multiple ear-piercings, she brought glamour to the game. Advertisers and corporate sponsors rushed to sign her and soon her face was selling.

Well, I've grown up on the tennis circuit which has friendships with people from diverse religions, races, backgrounds and scores of different countries across the globe. I think this experience broadened my horizons. I can comfortably embrace relationships on a personal level while looking beyond narrow constraints.

The dress she wears on the tennis court not only doesn't cover large parts of her body but leaves nothing to the imagination of voyeurs. She will undoubtedly be a corrupting influence.

A High Court lawyer filed a case for her arrest (without bail) and a three-year jail sentence... [case] under something called the "Prevention Of Insult To The National Honour Act", citing "disrespect" to the national flag. India's predilection for red tape, taught to them by the Imperial British, but since refined to gargantuan levels, means that by the time the case gets to court she will probably be a grandmother, but it's a bit of worry nonetheless. When Sania, who is Shia Muslim, first bared her thighs on a tennis court, people took to the streets to burn effigies of her, although this in itself is such a common event in India that it more or less doubles the smog levels.

One of the thrills of playing at the top tennis centres of the world is to see the Indian flag go up whenever I`m participating in these events. That's enough motivation for any Indian who has the opportunity to perform at these tournaments.

Her breezy optimism as she took on some of the world's top players endeared her to her compatriots: for just as India was beginning to emerge as a world power, here was a young woman displaying a brazen determination to shake off the shackles of the underdog. Off-court, too, her confidence was striking. Confounding stereotypes of demure and retiring Indian femininity, she delighted in brash displays of adolescent attitude.

All I want to do is play.

I think being a woman celebrity is the hardest thing in India.... People will ask many things, what you wear, how you speak, when you will have a baby and other things.

She is betraying both nations, she neither lives here (India) nor in Pakistan, but she resides in Dubai. We request the Indian Government not to allow Sania to represent India and let her reside in Dubai.

Leaves me with no choice but to laugh. I am pretty sure these are not the pre-wedding jitters or butterflies in the stomach my married cousins were talking about!

She is a very talented player. I see a very good future for her.

On 12 February 2005 thousands of people started gathering at dawn for the final of the Hyderabad Open [to watch Sania in the final] and, by 10 in the morning, so dense were the crowds outside that it was difficult to get into the Fateh Maidan complex. There for the match were film stars from south India as well as local government officials; corporate VIPs from Mumbai, labourers from nearby towns and families who had travelled hundreds of miles from Delhi.