Imran Mirza Sir shares his guidance for the Tennis parents in this interview with Indian Tennis Daily.
Imran Sir emphasises the importance of mature handling the emotional rollercoaster of wins and losses, sharing insights into how he instilled resilience in Sania from a young age. He also offers invaluable advice for aspiring players, highlighting the significance of long-term commitment, strategic planning, and a balanced approach to education and sports.
Interview transcript below
Tennis is a very lonely sport with losses every week. How important it is for one to learn to take the highs / lows in the stride.
I think my biggest contribution to Sania Mirza in her career was to help her get over her losses. We come from a sporting family. I think that’s a great plus that we have had.
For a person coming out of a family that never played sports, they would struggle to make other people in the family understand that losses are very much part of the game. Sport teaches you to take defeat and victories and handle them in an efficient manner. That’s the most important thing that sport teaches you.
This was something that we were very conscious of from the beginning to never allow the losses to affect her. The loss was always treated as something to learn from and as something that you should come back from.
You would be surprised that in the juniors when Sania lost a match, we would actually celebrate that day because then we would have a day off with no match or practise the next day. We didn’t want Sania to feel that she was being treated in any different manner based on a win or a loss as long as she gave it her best. That was the most important part.
If we felt that she did not give her best or didn’t try hard enough, that was not enough for us. But if she tried her best and lost the match, we were satisfied.
A lot of people comment that under pressure, Sania Mirza comes out firing or she gives her best under pressure. I think that comes from years of having been trained to take losses and victories in the same manner.
If you were to advise any upcoming players, where should be the focus from 8-11, 12-15 and beyond?
I think the first and the foremost thing is to have the child enjoy the game. As long as the child is enjoying the game, she or he will give her best.
The second aspect is – it’s not right to put your child into a sport for becoming famous or earning money. It is just not worth it as there is too much effort involved. Unless the whole family is enjoying the effort, enjoying the struggle – it is not really worth it. I do not think the child will enjoy it as well and unless they enjoy it themselves, they will not succeed. Putting pressure is the last thing I would do, I have never done that with Sania. As long as the kid is doing her best, there is nothing more to be done.
A child feels the pressure from the parent more than from anyone else. They don’t care about what the world thinks. When the parent starts treating them differently when they have lost a match, I think that impacts them a lot.
This is something that I am very conscious of. Don’t ever put any pressure – let them enjoy the game. Not everyone can become a professional or a world beater – as long as they reach the level they are capable of – that’s what you should try to teach them to do.
There is a lot that goes into making a Tennis player. Even though it is an individual sport, it requires the entire circle of people around you to be in it. There is more team effort required than any other team sport. There is a lot of struggle involved. There is so much blood and tears that have gone into coming out here. That’s why there is so much respect in there for everyone in the locker rooms or in the player lounges because they all recognise the difficulties that each one has gone through to come here.
You should enjoy the struggle – that is the only way to go about it. If you are doing it for fame or money, I don’t think you can do it and it’s not even advisable.
Lot of Indian Juniors do well on the Junior Circuit but unfortunately tend to be injury prone as we transition to the pro tour. What are your thoughts on the physical development of Indian Juniors and its importance?
One of the most important requirements to nurture a champion is to do the right things and that has to continue over a period of 15 years at least. When a player starts off at say age 7 or 8 – I have had so many parents come up to me and say – how much time will it be before the player can start playing international tournaments.
My standard answer to the parents has been that they need to first play for 6-7 years before we can even decide whether they have a chance or not. So this time just goes into improving and trying to become the best version of yourself. Then you see the level you are at and decide whether you have a chance or not – then it takes another 5 years to turn professional.
That’s the kind of commitment you need and everything has to fall into place. Whether it is the bookings for your hotels, the flights, the trains, using the right coaches or the trainers – all these things – you mess up in any one place, the career is gone. So everything has to be planned perfectly.
You need to be lucky to be able to do it. You have to have the talent of course, that is a prerequisite.
So one reason why Indian players don’t make it from juniors to the pros is because they don’t do the right things at the right point of time. Whether it is going to the right coaches, the right physical trainers – because there is a lot of money involved and one has to raise those funds from sponsors. But without doing the right things, one is never going to make it at the international level – it is a very competitive sport.
There is a reason why there is so much prize money involved – so many people want to excel in it and watch the sport and that results in very intense competition.
Age fraud is a topic that keeps coming up in Indian Junior Tennis. Is this something that you observed as a parent as Sania was rising up? What are your views on this topic?
When Sania Mirza burst on the scene, age fraud was rampant. We were among the first to actually make her play in an age group ahead of her time. Normally a 20 year old in India would be playing U16 or U18 tennis and here was Sania, at the age of 12 – playing the U18 tournaments in India.
We realised very early that the Indian competition is not good enough for someone to really graduate out of that and get to the international standard. So the best thing would be to play in a higher age group so that she would be playing better opponents to improve her game.
There were different categories of tournaments that we made Sania play in as a junior –
- Underdog category: Tourneys where we knew Sania would lose but we wanted her to play those tournaments so that she could improve as a player
- Top seed category: Tourneys where Sania would be the top seed and expected to win the title. We wanted her to play these matches as the favourite so that she knew how to handle pressure from the early days.
- Median category: These are tournaments where she was neither the best nor the weakest player but we felt that by playing in these tournaments, she had a chance to get onto the radar of potential sponsors because money is important at that point
So this is the kind of planning that went into making Sania.
For most of the junior players that are caught between the path of going Pro or taking the College route. What would be your advice?
One should never ever give up education. There are a lot of coaches who encourage parents to stop school so that they can focus on Tennis because they feel that’s the career they should give priority to.
I think that is too risky. We never did that with Sania Mirza. I spoke on this topic with Leander and Mahesh`s father as well – they followed the path that we did.
Every 6 months to 1 year – we would reassess her tennis career and then decide. Sania would still be going to school – maybe not getting a 90% but getting a 65 or 70% so that she had one foot in education. You cannot decide at the age of 7-9 that someone will turn professional. You can only take that call when someone is around age 16. So till that time, keep one foot in education.
Take a very balanced view at that stage to see if they have a chance to make it in International Tennis – if not, you can get back to focusing on education and the Tennis Scholarships that one gets – its a terrific alternate career to move into.
Sania finished school and graduated in 10th and 12th with about 65% grades. She went into college, did about a year of college and then there was a choice to either play Wimbledon or do college and then she focused on Tennis at that time.