Sania Mirza wishes her only concerns ahead of a tennis match involved studying the strengths and weaknesses of her opponent.
These days, she's taking phone calls from her lawyers in India, answering questions about her loyalty to her home country, consistently having to defend herself over her Muslim beliefs, and in her darkest times, considering quitting the sport.
"It's not easy to deal with things like that off the court ... I am not superhuman so it does affect me," Mirza said yesterday after her first-round win at the Australian Open. "As much as I try to block it out, it's still in the back of your mind."
PHOTO: AP
When she first came on the WTA Tour full-time three years ago -- her first Grand Slam was the Australian Open in 2005 -- she was often criticized for her short skirts and midriff-revealing T-shirts that put her at odds with sections of the orthodox Muslim clergy.
As of last week, she's having her nationalism questioned.
She was photographed at the Hopman Cup mixed team tournament in Perth, Western Australia, earlier this month with her bare feet positioned near an Indian flag. On Jan. 9, a social worker went to a court in downtown Bhopal and had a judge issue a summons under the "Prevention of Insult to the National Honor Act."
The court was told that Mirza disrespected the Indian flag by "sitting in a manner so that her feet pointed at the flag, which he felt was derogatory and had hurt him."
Mirza disagrees.
"I wouldn't do anything to disrespect my country, I love my country," said Mirza, from the southern Indian city of Hyderabad. "I wouldn't be playing Hopman Cup otherwise. But other than that, I am not allowed to comment because it is before the courts."
She said she considered quitting tennis last week, ending a career that has netted one WTA Tour title and seven finals appearances.
"It does play on your mind, you do start to think that at the end of the day, I am not a politician to outsmart people," Mirza said. "That's not what I am trying to do, which is to play tennis. I'm 21 and trying to be the best I can be. A lot of thoughts went through my head in the past couple of weeks, and one of the thoughts was [quitting]. But I wouldn't say that they were serious enough that I would quit right now."
Eventually yesterday, No. 31-seeded Mirza talks about what she did on the court, a 6-4, 6-2 win over wild-card entry Iroda Tulyaganova of Uzbekistan.
"It was very tricky to play again, I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to blank out everything and play a tennis match," Mirza said.
In 2005, she became the first Indian woman to advance to the third round of any Grand Slam, losing to Serena Williams here after being granted an Asian region wild card.
This year, she could face Venus Williams in the third round -- if she beats Switzerland's Timea Bascinszky in the second -- providing a calming sense of symmetry to counteract all the off-court madness.
"It is very special, there were a lot of firsts involved," Mirza says of 2005. "I always feel confident when I come back here."
Once she's finished talking about court cases, nationalism, religion and tennis, the inevitable question -- about cricket -- comes up. It is by far the No. 1 sport in India.
Last week, India's cricketers threatened to quit their Down Under tour over the suspension of spin bowler Harbhajan Singh for allegedly making racist taunts to an Australian player and after a series of poor umpiring decisions had cost them the second Test in Sydney.
"At the end of the day, it is a sport, and we deal with bad line calls on a daily basis," Mirza says, then adds, smiling, "I have my own set of controversies to deal with."
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