The National Sports Governance Act mandates four women in the 15-member executive body of every sports federation in the country but iconic Sania Mirza believes her role in shaping young talent goes beyond a seat in the All India Tennis Association (AITA).
Sania, a trailblazer for Indian women in sports, spoke exclusively to PTI from her Dubai residence on a host of issues including pay parity in tennis, India’s Davis Cup win against Switzerland and why she considers 16-year-old Maya Rajeshwaran Revathi as special talent.
Asked if she could be seen in the sports administration in near future, Sania didn’t sound much interested.
“I don’t know if being in that power position is the only way I can help. That’s my honest answer to you. If I had an opportunity, would I be able to, you know, if I can contribute more by being in that position, I would love to do it. But is it something that I’m aiming or that’s my goal? The answer is no, that’s not my goal,” Sania said during the interview.
For her, a designation isn’t a pre-requisite to help the Gen-Next of Indian tennis growing in stature.
“My goal is to try to help as many of the young generation as possible, especially young girls, because I feel that they don’t have too many role models that they can look up to.
“I want to share my experiences that I’ve had. And if that gives me an opportunity to get into a system, let’s say, and gives me more opportunity than just being on the phone or helping them out on the court or whatever, I’m happy to do it.
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“But it’s not something that I really focus on. That’s not really my goal,” Sania was very categorical.
There has been endless debate about who is the real talent emerging in women’s tennis in India after Sania and the 38-year-old is very impressed with teenager Maya Rajeshwaran Revathi’s growth.
Maya trains at the Rafael Nadal Academy in Spain’s Mallorca.
“Maya has shown a lot of potential and it’s been a long time coming, this question of who after you, and this is something that we’ve been dealing with for the last, what, I think 25 years now.
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“So it’s really good to see a young 15-16 year old finally making it through and sort of just, you know, holding her own in the categories that are above her age group as well.” The former world No.27 in singles also lavished praise on the Indian men’s team for winning its away Davis Cup tie against Switzerland in Biel.
“It’s a great time to obviously give a shout out to the Davis Cup team who just won first time in over, I think, 31 or 32 years in Europe (1993 vs France at Frejus) against a European team beating Switzerland.
“Sumit Nagal really leading from the front there. Sumit, obviously, made it up over the last year, year and a half, had a great resurgence of sorts.” However talking about Nagal, Sania also had a word of caution that India’s premier singles player is also 28 right now.
“But these guys are not that young anymore. These guys are 28, 29, 30. And in tennis terms, it’s not that young. I know it sounds harsh, but that’s what it is. But Sumit’s done an unbelievable job to sort of keep the flag flying high, solo for the last few years and also winning in the Davis Cup.” As far youngster Dhakshineshwar Suresh is concerned, Sania wants to wait and watch a bit more.
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“We just need to give him some time. And we finally are seeing results in singles coming out. And he still has some way to go, obviously. But I think we definitely see some potential in him. And hopefully there are bigger and greater things to come.” While the prize money for men and women is equal at Grand Slam events but Sania wants to see more pay parity in the coming days.
“It is actually a myth that women and men tennis players earn the same amount of money. Yes, they earn the same amount of money in Grand Slams. But that’s and maybe one or two tournaments outside of that but there are not that many tournaments.
“At the end of the day, if you take somebody who’s 80 in the world in women’s singles and same ranking among men, latter will have more prize money. But that’s because of the disparity in the other tournaments.” “So having equal prize money in today’s day and age should not even be a point of discussion, in my opinion, because the work that goes in, the kind of team that goes in, the expenses that go in, everything that’s happening is the same for female and male.” Tennis as a game has become three times faster and physicality is an element that is now the most important aspect.
“I think the power tennis sort of that whole shift happened when the Williams sisters came into play, you know, over 20 years ago.
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“And after that, I feel what happened was that the courts got faster. Like if you see the US Open and you if you watch Alcaraz vs Sinner, the court was lightning fast, but tennis has become, three to four times more physical than it used to be, let’s say, 30 years ago.”
