New Delhi, May 6:
Path-breaking tennis ace Sania Mirza takes pride in the fact that many of India’s sporting stars, outside cricket, are women even though she believes that it will take a few more generations before being a sportswoman is seen as a natural career choice in the country.
The winner of six Grand Slam titles, spoke on a range of issues including the role of parents and attitude of coaches towards women players during a webinar organised by the All India Tennis Association and the Sports Authority of India (SAI).
“I take huge pride in the fact that outside cricket, the biggest sports stars are women athletes. If you see magazines, billboards, you find women sports stars. That is a huge step, I know how difficult it is to pursue a sport being a woman,” Sania said.
“This is a signal that things have changed but we have miles to go before we reach the point where when a girls picks up boxing gloves, or a badminton racquet or says ‘I want to be a wrestler’, it’s not out of ordinary, it should become natural progression.”
When asked why girls tend to quit tennis when they reach the age of 15 or 16, Sania said there are deep cultural issues.
“Sport in this side of the world does not come naturally to parents. They want their daughters to be doctors, lawyers, teachers but not an athlete. Things have changed in the last 20-25 years since I started playing tennis but still there is long way to go,” she said.
India has a number of trailblazing women athletes, who have achieved significantly at the world stage.
Olympic medal-winning shuttlers P V Sindhu and Saina Nehwal, six-time world champion boxer M C Mary Kom, Asian Games champion wrestler Vinesh Phogat, and former world champion weightlifter Mirabai Chanu are among the lot making waves globally consistently. (PTI)
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