5 times when Sania Mirza made you feel proud to be an Indian
Sania Mirza is an icon for Indian tennis and women all over the world. She is one of the most popular female athletes in the world courtesy of being the most successful female Indian tennis player of all time.Having taken up tennis at the age of 6, Sania has gone on to astonish the world by achieving the near impossible and despite making her debut more than a year ago, she still carries the torch for women’s tennis in India. Owing to her achievements, she has been conferred with the Arjuna Award (2004), Padma Shri (2006) and more recently, the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award in 2015.Time and again, she has made brought glory to the country and continues to do so even now. Here are 5 times when the 28-year-old made us feel proud to be an Indian:
#1 Breakthrough in the Top 30
In 2006, Sania Mirza became the first Indian female to be seeded in a Grand Slam when she started her campaign at the opening Slam of the year – the Australian Open, but, she lost in the second round to Michaella Krajicek. She ended the year on a positive note by picking up three medals in the Asian Games in Doha – Mixed doubles gold, silver in women’s singles and team. This rounded off a brilliant year for her individually as she beat Svetlana Kuznetsova, Martina Hingis and Nadia Petrova.
In 2007, she finished 8th in the US Open Series, which propelled her to a career best ranking of 27 in women’s singles. This was the highest ranking attained by any Indian woman tennis player.