Sania Mirza will be playing her farewell tournament in Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships. A trailblazer and a path breaker for Indian sports and Indian women, she shares her thoughts to the media ahead of her final hurrah.
Q. Sania, your level of play on court still remains pretty good. Have you reconsidered retirement?
Sania: My level of play is not something that was ever in doubt for me. But it’s very important for me to go out on the top, it’s very important for me to go when I’m playing well, on my own terms. But there’s more to life and my priorities have really changed.I’m playing well and I feel good, but the amount of work that goes in, to feel that way – I don’t have the drive anymore.
Q.What is your mindset going before playing your final tournament? How do you prepare knowing you are retiring at the end of it?
Sania :Just to play those those extra matches. I have a lot of friends and family coming in this week. It doesn’t really matter when you are losing. I’m just trying to enjoy my last moments, because these moments are never going to come back.
Q. Sania , you Leander and Mahesh has everything been pathbreakers and trendsetters. Now that you are retiring, there seems to be a vaccum in terms of next generation. What do you think is the reason?
Unfortunately there is no system in place. Whether it’s me or Mahesh or Leander or Vijay or Ramesh – it could be anybody of us, we’ll alltell you that we have come out because of our individual efforts and it’s all despite the system and not because of the system. To build a system that a player knows what to do, where to go, none of that is existing at this point of time. That’s why it’s takes 20 years to create a champion. It’s not easy without a system to create champions like that.
