prasad1
Active member
Throughout her career, she has been the subject of off-court controversies, each time through no fault of hers. There has been a persistent campaign—on social media and in the comments sections of news sites—to belittle her tennis achievements. To describe those achievements as being without precedent would be an understatement. Before Mirza, no Indian woman had been ranked in the top 100 in the world in singles, or won a WTA title in singles or doubles.
Mirza had no precedent not only in tennis but in sport in general. She grew up in a world where the only iconic performance by an Indian woman in any sport was PT Usha’s narrow failure to win a medal in the 400m hurdles at the Los Angeles Olympics—and that was in 1984, before Mirza was even born. Mirza’s detractors argue that she underachieved in singles and has only found success in the “soft option” of doubles. These accusations are rarely if ever thrown at Mahesh Bhupathi or Leander Paes.
These claims reveal a remarkable pettiness and ignorance. Mirza’s achievements in singles alone are more than sufficient for a place in the Indian sporting pantheon. She was ranked No. 27 in the world, has won a WTA title, and has reached the second week at a major (the 2005 US Open). In comparison, if one is appropriate to make, Paes’s highest singles ranking was 73 and Bhupathi’s was 217.
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Off the court, Mirza has been attacked by Muslim fundamentalists—who believe that no woman ought to be allowed to play tennis at all, given its sartorial demands—and by ultra-nationalists who are especially outraged by her marriage to Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik. She has been serially accused of being unpatriotic—in one instance, she was farcically accused of disrespecting the national flag, and in another, Bharatiya Janata Party member K Laxman bigotedly asserted that as a “daughter-in-law of Pakistan” she was unfit to serve as a brand ambassador for Telangana.
Yet throughout she has represented India in every competition possible—Fed Cup, Hopman Cup, Commonwealth, Asian and Olympic Games—with both dignity and evident patriotism (even though the display of patriotism is an absurd demand to place on a sportsperson).
Now she has achieved that goal. But, just as importantly, through a decade of sustained excellence, she has served as a role model, of the kind she didn’t have herself, to aspiring sportspeople.
After belittling her for years, it is time India appreciates its most famous female tennis star ? Quartz
