Indian superstar balances success with motherhood
Sania Mirza is defying cultural expectations by returning to elite tennis, she tells Simon Briggs
Unless you are Indian, or well up on your tennis, Sania Mirza could be the most famous athlete you have never heard of. A former Wimbledon champion and world No1 in doubles, her Twitter following of 9.1million outstrips even that of Novak Djokovic. And, as Mirza returns to the spotlight this week, 15 months after giving birth, she is putting her platform to good use.
Mirza explains that – like Serena Williams before her – she represents living proof that young mothers need not abandon their careers. This is a stand worth making. While most Americans are familiar with the argument for equal rights, gender expectations on the Asian subcontinent tend to be more traditional.
“One of the reasons to make this comeback was to tell women that you can follow your dreams,” says Mirza. “Just because you have a baby, you don’t have to sacrifice your entire life. You can still be a good mother [while working].
“We are in a very privileged position to be able to do this,” she adds, with a sweeping gesture that takes in Williams and the five other mothers who entered the Australian Open. “There are a lot of people who are not able to do it for various reasons, perhaps because they are being told that they can’t, or shouldn’t. And it is a lot more pronounced on the side of the world that I come from. Especially after having a kid, it’s like, ‘Oh, so the woman is just gonna sit at home and take care of the kids and the guy is gonna go out and work’. Which is not fair on many levels.
“I don’t think religion has anything to do with it. It’s more a culture. Twenty-five years ago, when I started playing tennis in Hyderabad, people thought my parents were crazy to even dream about their child playing Wimbledon one day, let alone winning. So, I think that is something that I have actively tried to change, or talk about. ‘Listen,’ I want to say, ‘there are double standards when it comes to girls and boys playing sport.’ The couple of Olympic medals India got [at the 2016 Games] were both from girls. Outside of the cricketers, the biggest superstars are all women. That tells you that times have changed. But I still think there is some way to go.”
Izhaan Mirza Malik must have inherited the ultimate sporting genome, as his father is the Pakistan cricketer, Shoaib Malik.
Thinking back to his birth in October 2018, Mirza recalls no concrete plans to play professional tennis again. She was then approaching her 32nd birthday, and had already won six major titles: three in women’s doubles, three in mixed; as well as accumulating 91 weeks as world No1 in doubles.
When she finally decided to return to the match court, around six months ago, Shoaib played a major role. “He was the most supportive. Even when I wasn’t sure, he kept on telling me, ‘Why don’t you go and practise?’ So, he comes from a very different mindset [to many people in India and Pakistan], which is why we were married. It takes a very strong man to be married to a strong woman.”
The toughest part of the process was already behind Mirza (below) at this stage. It had taken her four months to lose the 3½st she accumulated during pregnancy. She has undergone operations on both knees, which ruled out running as a fitness tool. So, she had to rely on the elliptical trainer, as well as a diet that included no dairy, gluten or processed sugar. “I didn’t cheat on my diet for a single day,” she says triumphantly. “I am very stubborn, like a lot of successful people. That worked in my favour. The amount of people that came up to me and said, ‘We really thought that you would never lose the weight’. Like, forget playing tennis again! I was like, ‘Do you guys not know me?’
“I don’t take social media too seriously, but with my weight-loss journey, I was posting. It wasn’t about becoming skinny. It was about being healthy again. And I was getting hundreds of messages every day. Women were messaging me saying, ‘I didn’t go to the gym in three years after I had a kid, I was 15 kilos [2st 5lb] overweight, but I saw your video and I went for a walk’. Those messages are the ones that you live for.”
Mirza spent her two years of tennis downtime at home in Dubai. In the immediate aftermath of her marriage in 2010, she attracted plenty of bile from Indian nationalists. Happily, though, the sort of pestering she receives these days is more likely to be from selfie-hunters than trolls.
“In Dubai, we can go to supermarkets and do basic things like that. But we still can’t go to the mall. At least I look a bit different than I do on TV. My husband looks exactly the same. We have arguments about pictures [selfie requests] all the time. I’m like, ‘Please say no to a picture when we’re eating food’. Because then I look like the bad one if I say no.”
Of all the mothers who have returned to tennis, Mirza enjoyed the most immediate success. In Hobart on Saturday, she won her first tournament back, with the help of her Ukrainian partner Nadiia Kichenok – not to mention a large entourage that included both her parents, Izhaan and his nanny. Her husband was meant to attend also but was instead called up for Pakistan against Bangladesh.
“I still think I have tennis left in me,” she says. “If you ask whether all that training was worth it, the answer is, ‘Yes, 100 per cent’.”