Sania Mirza’s story is, on the face of it, the story of a tennis player who starts out on a makeshift court in Hyderabad and ends up at the top of the world. But it is far more than that: through a powerful forehand and an almost absurd stubbornness, a young Indian Muslim woman became the point where sport, politics, religion, feminism and national identity collide.
From cow-dung courts to the Wimbledon dream
In the 1990s, on the outskirts of Hyderabad. There are no exclusive clubs, no gleaming academies. The first “courts” a very young Sania trains on are made of flattened, painted cow dung. It is a perfect snapshot of a country that, at the time, cannot even imagine an Indian woman tennis player able to go toe to toe with the world’s elite.
“There were only two courts in Hyderabad. One of them was inside a gentleman’s house, so we had to request him and wait for hours to get access,” Imran said.
What makes the difference is her family. Her father, Imran Mirza, though not a professional coach, becomes his daughter’s coach for thirty years, studying the game, adapting, experimenting. Her mother, Naseema, takes on the unseen work: hours queuing for discounted train tickets, constant financial sacrifices, the logistics of a project that, in many people’s eyes, looks like pure madness.
All around them, the usual soundtrack of prejudice: “Outdoor sport will darken your skin, who will want to marry you?”, “Tennis is an expensive hobby.” They press on.
The early flash: the girl who beats sixteen-year-olds
Sania’s talent shows itself immediately, with a head start that is almost cruel for her opponents. As a child she starts beating much older girls, she enters the ITF junior circuit early and begins stacking up results that feel out of scale for an India that, in women’s tennis, still does not exist. In 2002 she wins bronze at the Asian Games in mixed doubles with Leander Paes, at 15. In 2003, at Wimbledon juniors, she wins the girls’ doubles and becomes the first Indian woman to lift a junior Slam trophy.
That success on London grass is the message an entire country has been waiting for: it is not science fiction to see an Indian girl raising a trophy in one of tennis’s temples.
The singles glass ceiling
Between 2004 and 2012, Sania lives the most heroic and painful phase of her career: her years as a singles player.
In 2005 she wins the Hyderabad Open, becoming the first Indian to take a WTA singles title. In her own city, in front of a delirious crowd, “Sania-mania” is officially born: magazine covers, sponsors, little girls who want her racket.
That same year she posts results that, for India, still feel unthinkable:
third round at the Australian Open, where she holds her own against Serena Williams, fourth round at the US Open, after beating Marion Bartoli, losing only to the No.1 seed, Maria Sharapova.
In 2006 she reaches world number 27 in singles, still the highest career ranking ever achieved by an Indian woman. She beats top players such as Svetlana Kuznetsova, Nadia Petrova and, in Seoul, even Martina Hingis.
For a system used to thinking of Indians as “doubles specialists, great hands but physically fragile”, her tennis is pure power.
Anatomy of a forehand that rips through, and a body that wears down
Sania’s trademark is her forehand. A shot so violent and unpredictable it is regarded as one of the heaviest in the women’s game of her era.
The secret lies in a particular physical trait: hypermobile joints. Her wrist and shoulder rotate more than normal, allowing her to change direction at the last instant. For opponents, reading the shot is almost impossible.
But every superpower comes at a price. A very closed (western) grip combined with hypermobility puts huge stress through wrist, elbow and shoulder. Injuries arrive, then surgery: wrist, knees, long layoffs, slow comebacks. In 2008 the pain is so bad that, she says, she struggles even to brush her hair. The idea of never being able to play again becomes a real fear.
The numbers capture the crossroads:
in singles she finishes with a thoroughly respectable 271 wins and 161 losses,
but it is in doubles that she becomes a machine: 536 wins, 43 titles, six Slams and world number 1.
In 2013 she makes the hardest decision: to stop playing singles. It is a strategic choice. To keep winning, she has to stop trying to do it “on her own” out there.
The athlete’s body as a cultural target
Off court, Sania has already become something else: a living target for the tensions of contemporary India.
She is a woman, she is Muslim, she plays in shorts and a T-shirt in a globalised, “Western” sport. She is the perfect projection of all the anxieties of a society changing too fast.
In 2005 some conservative religious figures publicly criticise her clothing, calling it “un-Islamic”. The media talk about a “fatwa”, the row flares up. At 18, she finds herself travelling with security, protected by police at stadiums.
Sania’s response? No retreat:
“I don’t think you should take a lot of things seriously that I wear. It’s just a T-shirt.”
She keeps playing in the same kit, and sometimes takes the court in T-shirts with a blunt message: “Well-behaved women rarely make history”.
Two years later, in 2007, the argument returns, identical but bigger. At Wimbledon, The Guardian described her return to a skirt as an act of autonomy and quoted her like this:
“How I dress is a very personal thing, so give me a break.”
Over the years, the controversies pile up: accusations of disrespect towards the Indian flag over an ambiguous TV shot, furious protests when, speaking about safe sex, she argues for the importance of sex education, the political uproar around her appointment as ambassador of the new state of Telangana, above all, her marriage in 2010 to Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik, which sparks accusations of “betrayal” from the most zealous nationalists. At a press conference, Mirza tried to break the narrative before it swallowed her:
“I think we are getting married. We are not making any statement, politically.”
Four years later, in 2014, when a politician attacked her by effectively calling her “foreign” by birth and by marriage, Mirza drew a clear line again. NDTV reported her statement unambiguously:
“I am an Indian, who will remain an Indian until the end of my life.”
And yet, in all these cases, Mirza keeps doing the simplest and most radical thing: representing India, winning, answering questions with a cold-blooded calm. Her loyalty to the country runs through results and commitment, not through her private choices.
“Santina”: when the pioneer becomes queen
Freed from the burden of singles, Sania reinvents herself as a doubles player. Here the story stops being important only for India and becomes big on a global scale.
The turning point comes in 2015 with her partnership with Martina Hingis. The press dubs them “Santina”: Sania + Martina. A perfect fit on court too: the Swiss player’s touch and tactical intelligence, the Indian’s power and baseline aggression.
In little more than a year, they:
win Wimbledon, the US Open and the Australian Open in women’s doubles,
put together a 41-match winning streak, make women’s doubles feel almost like prime-time viewing, drawing crowds and attention as rarely before.
On 13 April 2015, Sania becomes world number 1 in doubles: the first Indian woman in history to lead a world ranking in a professional sport.
Add in the mixed doubles, won with partners such as Mahesh Bhupathi and Bruno Soares, and the final haul is six Grand Slam titles. But, once again, the numbers are only half the story.
Motherhood, 26 kilos down, and a title on return
In 2018 her son Izhaan is born. In many Asian cultures, this is the moment when a woman’s sporting career is supposed to end, “naturally”.
Sania does the opposite. During pregnancy she gains 23 kilos. After giving birth, she decides she will come back. With a brutal training and diet plan, she loses 26. In 2020 she returns to the tour in Hobart and wins straight away, in doubles.
Asked why she came back, she answers in her own way:
“Just because you have a baby, you don’t have to sacrifice your entire life. You can be a good mother and work at the same time”.
She joins the same club as figures like Serena Williams: athletes who refused the idea that motherhood is an epilogue rather than a chapter.
From a lack of courts to purpose-built facilities: the Sania Mirza Tennis Academy
But the girl from cow-dung courts has already become an institution. In 2013, in Hyderabad, she opens the Sania Mirza Tennis Academy: nine international-standard hard courts, a gym, a physio area, elite programmes.
At the heart of the project is the social element: scholarships for talents from rural areas, support for families who cannot afford the “luxury” of such an expensive sport. The message is clear: I had to invent everything, you won’t.
Today, when players like Sahaja Yamalapalli or Shrivalli Bhamidipaty emerge, they openly cite Sania’s impact: not only as an idol, but as the trigger for a shift in parents’ mindsets. Twenty years ago, a daughter who played tennis was a rich person’s hobby. Today, more and more often, it is a possible profession.
The last backhand and the emptiness after the applause
In February 2023, in Dubai, Sania plays her last tournament as a professional. The next day she says she felt “empty”, as if a part of her had died. It is the typical grief of elite athletes: when the routine of an entire life dissolves overnight.
To fill that void, she does not retire in silence. She becomes a mentor to the Royal Challengers Bangalore women’s cricket team in the Women’s Premier League, a TV pundit, the face of gender-equality campaigns, a UN Women ambassador.
It is as if she has simply changed courts, bringing the same intensity with her.
Awards, medals and something you cannot measure
Over her career, India honours her with almost everything it can offer:
Arjuna Award (2004),
Padma Shri (2006),
the Khel Ratna (2015), the highest sporting honour,
Padma Bhushan (2016),
appointed Goodwill Ambassador for UN Women in 2014, the first South Asian woman to hold the role.
And yet, even here, the official honours are only the surface.
The comparison with Indian men’s tennis
Indian men’s tennis has produced champions of the highest level, especially in doubles. Not to mention the legendary singles player Vijay Amritraj. Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi brought India prestige, international respect and memorable victories. But that success remained, largely, within a specialist dimension, followed by a knowledgeable audience but not necessarily a vast one.
Sania Mirza did something different: she took tennis out of its niche. She made it recognisable even to people who did not follow the tour, who could not tell a ranking from a draw. That is where the crucial difference lies: Indian men’s tennis built sporting reputation, Sania built popular presence.
Three legacies, one person
If we try to sum up Sania Mirza’s legacy, we can look at it from three angles.
Technical and athletic
She showed that an Indian woman tennis player can express power, aggression and physical intensity at the highest level. She is the only compatriot to have broken into the top 30 in singles and the only one to have reached world number 1 in doubles. For anyone stepping on court today with an Indian passport, her records are the new benchmark to chase.
Sociological and symbolic
She moved through sexism, religious moralism and toxic nationalism without being bent or silenced. She used her visibility to speak about female infanticide, equal pay, women’s rights and sexual health. Every day, she embodied the idea that you can be a daughter, a wife, a mother and a world champion without giving up any of those roles.
Institutional
Through her academy and her work as a mentor, she built an “after her”. Young Indian women who win important matches today do not walk into a void. They walk on a road she paved, stone by stone.
The number: real popularity
The clearest signal of that transformation is numerical, but not trivial. As of today, Sania Mirza has around 13 million followers on Instagram. That puts her among the very top figures in world tennis, men and women together:
she is followed more than Maria Sharapova,
more than Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner,
on a similar level to Roger Federer,
and surpassed only by figures like Nadal, Djokovic and Serena Williams.
That number is not explained by tennis alone. It is explained by India. By a vast audience that does not follow only the result, but the person who carries that result on her shoulders.
Why India followed her like that
Because Sania Mirza never felt like a guest in world tennis.
Because she won by taking responsibility for winning.
Because she spoke when staying silent would have been easier.
Because she never turned her career into a request for approval.
India did not follow her because she was winning.
India followed her because she did not step back. And so did the world.
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Further Reading: Ace Against Odds
“A candid, first-person account of Mirza’s rise from improvised courts in Hyderabad to the very top of doubles, with the costs laid bare: injuries, scrutiny, nationalism, faith, gender expectations and the politics that attach themselves to a woman athlete in modern India. It reads like the off-court companion piece to her career, and it matches the themes of this article almost beat for beat.”
📚 For those interested in the pressure, public controversy and identity battles that run alongside elite tennis, Ace Against Odds is the most direct add-on:
🔗 Ace Against all Ods
