As the dust settles on Sania Mirza’s retirement and it starts to sink in that we won’t watch her play again, the belief is firmed up that we won’t ever have a second Sania. She was much like Aamir Khan’s character in Three Idiots. A once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon who came as a breath of fresh air for Indian tennis. And that’s what begs the questions. “How did Sania happen?” “What made Sania Unique?” “How could a middle-class family from Hyderabad with no background in elite sport produce a champion like her?” “What’s the backstory?” “How did Imran Mirza helped Sania become the champion that she is?”
Here’s Sania’s view. “Like I have alluded to in my autobiography, in the summer holidays, we went to Bengaluru to spend a few weeks with my father’s uncle,” she said. “It was Wimbledon time and my parents were watching Steffi Graf play Jana Novotna in the 1993 women’s final on television. When I walked into the room, Dad looked at me indulgently and said to mom, ‘Hey, what if someday Sania becomes a professional tennis player and gets to play at Wimbledon on Centre Court?’
“Everyone present in the room chuckled at the outrageous suggestion. In those days, it was quite unthinkable, the idea of playing tennis seriously and actually making a career of it, much less being a world-class women’s player. But my mother, partly because she was naive about the game, took to the idea. She went teary-eyed and a smile brightened her face.
“Mom knew exactly how important sport was to Dad. She understood very little about tennis then, but having watched the excitement of Wimbledon unfold on television, she knew what a major achievement it would be if her daughter actually made it to the famed Centre Court. ‘If Sania has a chance of playing at Wimbledon, I won’t leave a stone unturned to make it happen,’ she said, rather prophetically.”
“It is exactly what Naseema did,” said Imran. “That’s Naseema for you.”
While Imran was the hands-on coach, Naseema was the protective shield. Not once did Imran say a word to Sania or show dejection after she lost a close match. In fact, winning or losing made no difference, and he was happy if she put in her best effort. “This is what made Sania the player that she is,” said Imran. “She was able to absorb pressure knowing it was her job to give her best. The result was not something she ever worried about and it allowed her to play freely during critical points.
“Producing a top-quality tennis player from our background wasn’t easy. You needed to think out of the box. And that’s where Naseema came in. She had travelled and worked in London and Dubai before marriage, and hence was a very confident world traveller. This not only enabled her to travel with Sania (when she was a junior) but having worked in the travel industry, she was a wizard at getting flight bookings at amazing prices at the last, which is exactly what we needed.
“When we were initially travelling by trains for junior AITA tournaments, if these were national tournaments we were entitled to 80 percent discount, and she would spend up to six to seven hours in queues to get the train bookings done at discounted prices for the entire two-month circuit. Also, Naseema was someone who loved spending on her clothes till Sania got into tennis. After that, she virtually gave up spending on herself and most of what we earned went into Sania’s tennis expenses.”
But what made him the coach that he turned out to be? Without much background, how is it that he helped mentor Sania all through her career?
Having watched clips of matches where Imran had to run on to court when the chips were down, it is fair to say that while he was never a great tennis player but he had a very sharp eye and an analytical brain for the game.
“While Sania was developing as a tennis player, I had the good fortune of working with some of the world’s best coaches and that gave me the confidence to coach Sania over the last decade and more,” said Imran. I have worked alongside Tony Roche (while he was simultaneously coaching Roger Federer), (the late) Bob Brett (who coached Boris Becker and Goran Ivanisevic, among others) and Sven Groeneveld (who coached Maria Sharapova). They all added to Sania’s game, and I learnt the finer points and nuances of tennis from these coaches. I then used that knowledge to adapt those techniques, that I had learnt from them, to suit the Indian body. This is where I believe I was able to get the best out of Sania as a tennis player.”