From a 30-hour breakdown in a 4th-hand diesel Maruti to a 2015 Wimbledon final miracle: Sania Mirza and her parents Nasima and Imran open up in a candid Q&A

Nasima Mirza: We are very excited because this is the 1st time you are interviewing us, which makes it very special for both of us.

Imran Mirza: After more than 3 decades of the 2 of us serving you and Indian tennis, it is finally you who is serving it up to us!

Imran Mirza: This is at SMTA, the Sania Mirza Tennis Academy—our dream project. When you were 7 or 8 years old in Hyderabad, we used to struggle endlessly just to find hard courts for you to practice on, often waiting for hours for an open court. It was always our dream to build proper infrastructure for Hyderabad and Indian tennis, and this academy in your name is how we hope you carry that legacy forward.

Sania Mirza: Inshallah. I want everyone to know that SMTA is the baby of our home. We built the academy with love, sweat, and blood so that today’s generation of young players can have the facilities we did not have when I was growing up, taking at least a small part of that burden off their shoulders.

Imran Mirza: Yes, because it is my picture here with you! This is 1 photograph out of the hundreds and thousands of hours we spent together on tennis courts around the world. It is a very happy memory of working relentlessly to achieve something no other Indian girl had ever achieved—and the sweat and blood that went into every single session.

Imran Mirza: That is the Khel Ratna, the ultimate sporting honor an Indian athlete can receive from the President of India. You flew down specially for 1 day from New York to Delhi, received the award, and flew straight back to the US. Honestly, I was very concerned about how your body would handle the jet lag and back-to-back long-haul flights right before a Grand Slam, but thankfully you went back to New York and won the 2015 US Open women’s doubles title!

Sania Mirza: The reason I was so adamant about flying back in person was because when I won the Arjuna Award earlier in my career, I was competing at a tournament abroad and could not attend the ceremony—so Mamma had to go on stage and receive the Arjuna Award on my behalf! People think I am crazy when I tell them I could not attend my own Arjuna Award ceremony, so for the Khel Ratna I refused to miss experiencing the highest sporting honor of our country in person.

Nasima Mirza: That mushroom cut was completely in style at that time—and when you were young, even you had that exact haircut!

Imran Mirza: I had nothing to do with it—blame your mother for that!

Nasima Mirza: That is only because you had no hair—otherwise I would have given you a mushroom cut too!

Imran Mirza: In 2006, you were being coached by the legendary Tony Roche, who was also coaching Roger Federer at that time. We were at Tony Roche’s home in Australia, and for an 18- or 19-year-old Indian girl to be hitting on the same court with Roger Federer under Tony Roche’s watchful eye was already a dream. While I was standing courtside watching the 2 of you rally, in walked the legend of my own generation—Ken Rosewall! So there I was chatting away with Ken Rosewall while my daughter was hitting with Roger Federer and Tony Roche was coaching them. That was the ultimate tennis dream of my life coming true.

Sania Mirza: Everyone always asks me, “How did it feel to play with Roger?” For me, partnering him in Delhi was literally having the best seat in the house. In my opinion, he is the most talented player ever to pick up a tennis racquet. Even in that short exhibition stint together, seeing the things he could do with a tennis ball from a few feet away was an unforgettable experience.

Nasima Mirza: Even though Anam is smiling in this picture from Venice, she was in a bad mood the entire trip because she was not able to do her “sopping” properly—that is how she used to pronounce “shopping” when she was little!

Imran Mirza: The 2 superstars of our home when they were little—and look, Anam has the exact same mushroom haircut here too, which continued until she was 10 years old while your mother insisted it was in style!

Nasima Mirza: It was in style then, and it is in style even today! And look closely at the 2 of you in that childhood photo: Anam’s daughter Dua looks identical to young Anam, and your son Izhaan looks exactly like you—it is literally mini Izhaan and mini Dua.

Nasima Mirza: When we arrived in London for Wimbledon in 2003, we were searching for a doubles partner for you and found Russian junior Alisa Kleybanova. But her mother told us, “I will watch your daughter’s forehand in practice tomorrow, and only then will I tell you whether my daughter will partner her or not!” The next day we had a practice session, her mother approved your forehand, and they signed up together. Initially it was a 32-team draw and you both got in around spot 17 or 18 thanks to your No. 7 junior singles ranking. Then typical London rain washed out the schedule for days, and tournament officials debated canceling Junior Doubles altogether before deciding to cut the draw down to just 16 pairs. You and Alisa landed on the 16th and final spot in the draw—beat the 1st seeds in Round 1, knocked out seeded teams all week, and went on to win the Wimbledon title!

Imran Mirza: In 2001, you had traveled to Wimbledon Juniors with your mother, and not a single player or coach wanted to practice with you. The foreign coaches genuinely felt that hitting with an Indian girl would do nothing to improve their players’ games. So Nasima called me in India and said, “You need to fly to London immediately and hit with Sania because nobody here wants to practice with her.” I boarded a flight to London just to be your hitting partner at Wimbledon! By the time I landed, you had thankfully found a practice partner, but I still joke that I was proud to be called up to hit at Wimbledon—and 2 years later, you won the trophy there.

Imran Mirza: That return from London in 2003 on the open-top bus was the 1st time you experienced true superstardom in India, and it was the defining moment when we genuinely believed you had arrived on the world stage.

Sania Mirza: Life was never the same for any of us after that week—both in terms of public recognition and the expectations we placed on ourselves. And 12 years later in 2015, winning the senior Wimbledon Women’s Doubles title on Centre Court with Martina Hingis brought it full circle in 1 of the greatest women’s doubles finals ever played. The morning after that final, Roger Federer walked up to me and said, “What a match you guys played last night!” To hear that from Roger after winning on Centre Court was surreal.

Nasima Mirza: We never initially thought about making you a professional player, but when we moved back to India from America, I was determined to enroll you in tennis because of a promise I had made to you. When we lived in the US and drove with your aunt to drop your cousins at their tennis lessons, you used to sit outside the court and cry: “Mamma, even I want to play tennis!” At that time in America, we could not afford the coaching fees. So I promised you that the very 1st thing I would do once we returned to Hyderabad was put you into tennis coaching.

Imran Mirza: In our family, sport was a way of life. My background was primarily cricket, and if you had been a boy you probably would have played cricket, while tennis was my 2nd love. We viewed sport as a serious education in character—learning how to handle winning, losing, excitement, and disappointment.

Nasima Mirza: There is 1 more memory from before you were even born! When I was pregnant with you, we were watching a Wimbledon match on television featuring Steffi Graf or Jana Novotna. At that point I did not even know how tennis scoring worked—I knew 0 about tennis! Your father turned to me and asked, “If we have a daughter, do you think we can make her play at Wimbledon like Steffi Graf?” And I replied, “Inshallah, if it is a girl, I will give whatever it takes.”

Nasima Mirza: Relatives and friends used to tell me directly, “You have gone crazy! Why are you spending so much money? Is she really going to become a big champion?” Even when we started driving to tournaments by car to save money on hotel bills and train reservations, people thought we had lost our minds.

Imran Mirza: Rightfully so—we had to be a little crazy to attempt what we were doing! I vividly remember people making tongue-in-cheek remarks behind our backs, saying, “Look at them, they have gone mad—they think they have got Martina Hingis in their family!” What a poetic rebuttal it was many years later when you became World No. 1 in women’s doubles—and Martina Hingis happened to be your partner!

Nasima Mirza: It was that exact tournament in Delhi when you were 12 years old and won both the U14 and U16 titles on the same day—that was the moment I truly believed in what you could become.

Imran Mirza: At the same time, in those early years, we never obsessed over becoming World No. 1 or winning Wimbledon. We took immense pride in winning an U8 event or reaching the semifinals of an U10 state ranking tournament. If parents start dreaming about Wimbledon when a child is 8, 9, or 10, every loss in an U12 semifinal becomes a crushing burden on the family.

Imran Mirza: Because I had played competitive sport myself, I knew how parental disappointment—even when unspoken—can weigh on a child until they stop enjoying the game. I was determined that would never happen to you, and I had to explain that mindset to Nasima early on, because mothers naturally assume their child is a world-beater and only loses if they did not try hard enough. From your U8 and U10 days onward, we never once spoke negatively to you after a loss. Every defeat was treated as a positive learning step, provided you gave your best effort.

Nasima Mirza: Remember our rule at All-India tournaments? Whenever you lost a match, all of us—the players and all the mothers—would immediately go out to watch a movie together! We made sure we went to the cinema specifically on the day you lost so you understood that winning and losing are simply part of sport, and the fear of losing never entered your heart.

Imran Mirza: I remember watching a very promising contemporary of yours on tour who kept losing tight matches because she was strangling herself with tension. When I asked her why she was putting so much pressure on herself instead of enjoying the contest, she told me honestly, “Uncle, when I was very young, my parents put immense pressure on me to win every match. Today they no longer say anything, but I cannot stop putting that same pressure on myself.” That early pressure ultimately derailed her career.

Nasima Mirza: Before moving to America, we were very comfortably settled in Hyderabad with our own home and business. In the US, both of us had to work all day, come home to cook and clean, and look after a 4-year-old. I told Imran, “This lifestyle is not my cup of tea—if you want to stay, I will stay, and if you want to return to India, let us go back.”

Imran Mirza: Public schooling in the US only started at age 6, and since we could not afford private daycare for a 4-year-old, you spent the entire day sitting inside the printing press I was running, completely bored. Seeing you like that, we realized we had a much better quality of life in India, so we surrendered our green cards in exchange for 10-year visitor visas and moved back to Hyderabad.

Imran Mirza: Right around that time in early 1991, we were flying from my brother’s home in Ohio to my sister’s home in California. Because Friday tickets were cheaper, we booked ourselves on a Friday flight. A couple of days before departure, my sister called from California and said, “It will be difficult for me to pick you up from the airport on Friday—why don’t you pay the change fee and switch your tickets to Saturday?” Even though it cost extra money we could barely spare, we changed our tickets to Saturday. On Friday, the exact flight we were booked on crashed. All 3 of us would have been on that plane—and Anam had not even been born yet. The very next day, on Saturday, we boarded the same flight number on the same route alongside only 3 or 4 other passengers because everyone else was too terrified to fly! I told Nasima that lightning does not strike the same flight 2 days in a row. Looking back, Allah and destiny clearly intended for us to return to India.

Imran Mirza: While a few people supported us, very few truly believed a girl from India could make it internationally. What gave me conviction was my eye for ball games: the moment I watched you strike a tennis ball, the timing and ball-striking were extraordinary. Even then, we thought maybe you would become No. 1 in Jubilee Hills, Banjara Hills, or India! Years later on the WTA Tour, a veteran international coach who had been on the circuit for 25 years walked up to me unprompted and said: “There are a few technical flaws in Sania’s game, but in 25 years on tour, I have never seen raw ball-striking talent of the caliber of Sania Mirza.” You needed that level of raw talent to break out of a non-existent system.

Nasima Mirza: When you were 8 years old hitting at Ace Tennis Academy in Hyderabad, other parents watching from the sidelines came up to me and asked, “Who is that girl?” When I said you were my daughter, they replied, “No, she is a diamond—she is going to shine!”

Imran Mirza: On-court losses never deterred us for a moment—it was the manufactured off-court controversies that hurt deeply. We tried to shield you from the noise as much as possible, but there was a moment in Perth, Australia during the Hopman Cup flag controversy when even you became so disillusioned that you wanted to quit tennis altogether, breaking down in tears during a television interview with Barkha Dutt. Those episodes made us wonder why we had subjected our family to such scrutiny.

Nasima Mirza: Plan B for every Indian parent is the same—if you stop studying or playing, get you married!

Imran Mirza: Jokes aside, several tennis coaches came to me when you were young and advised us to pull you out of school so you could focus full-time on tennis. I completely disapproved of that. Education builds your personality, confidence, and lifelong friendships, so we were adamant that you finish your regular school boards at Nasr School in Hyderabad.

Nasima Mirza: You were such a studious geek that you hated missing classes and would burst into tears if you scored 95, 97, or even 99 out of 100! Thankfully, our school headmistress was Mrs. Khan—the sister of late Indian cricket captain Nawab Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi. Coming from a sporting family herself, Mrs. Khan called you in and convinced you: “It is okay to miss classes and not get 100 percent on every test. Sport is important—you go out of Hyderabad and play, and I will take care of your attendance!”

Imran Mirza: Driving our own car was the most economical way for our family to travel to junior tournaments across India, because the moment you lost a match, we could pack up and drive to the next tournament city immediately instead of paying for hotel rooms while waiting for train reservations. And because diesel cost roughly 50 percent less than petrol at that time, I drove an old petrol Maruti to Guntur, where a local mechanic retrofitted another car’s diesel engine into it! The catch was that not a single mechanic along the national highways knew how to repair a petrol Maruti that had been converted to diesel.

Imran Mirza: On 1 trip from Hyderabad to Thiruvananthapuram, just before reaching Bengaluru, the engine lost power so badly that even with my foot floored on the accelerator, the car would only move at 20 km/h. We limped into Bengaluru, found a mechanic to patch it up, rested for a few hours, and resumed our drive toward Kerala. 80 kilometers past Bengaluru, the car failed again and dropped to a maximum speed of 15 km/h! We were too far to turn back to Bengaluru, so we had no choice but to crawl all the way to Thiruvananthapuram at 15 km/h. The journey took us 30 hours—and after all that, you lost in Round 1! Yet having 3-year-old Anam in the car with us kept the whole family united, and those road trips forged a bond we still cherish today.

Imran Mirza: Never once did we feel any pressure. In my family, there was never any gender discrimination—my sister is an architect who is better qualified than all of us.

Nasima Mirza: I always prayed for daughters and never wanted boys—though years later, before your son Izhaan was born, you were the 1 agitating for a boy because you said you had seen enough girl problems and wanted to see 1 boy in the family! As for the age gap between you and Anam, the honest truth is that we could not afford a 2nd child right after returning from America while rebuilding our business in Hyderabad. Once Anam was born, I balanced both of you with Imran’s support and our helper Purni, often bringing baby Anam courtside to your practice sessions while also working at the printing press during your school hours while Baba worked in construction. And we never considered any of it a “sacrifice”—when you have children, giving them everything is a parent’s duty and joy, not a sacrifice.

Imran Mirza: Chasing the same dream brought us much closer together as a team—and we were so busy that we had 0 time left to fight! Of course, the other secret to our happy 40-year marriage is that 1 of us was always traveling on tour with you while the other looked after home, so we stayed away from each other half the time!

Imran Mirza: My golden rule was simple: I was always a father 1st and a coach 2nd. Whenever a conflict arose between the 2 roles, the father had to take over and the coach had to step back. Many parent-coaches make the mistake of taking the coaching hat too seriously until it damages the parent-child bond. Coaching a daughter also requires emotional intelligence—unlike boys who might shout back at a coach and forget it 10 minutes later, no player wants a technical lecture immediately after walking off court from a tough loss. Being your father meant I knew exactly when to wait until you were ready to listen and absorb feedback.

Nasima Mirza: Not at all—by the time you retired, Izhaan and Dua were already here, and bringing up our grandchildren kept me completely happy and occupied!

Imran Mirza: You miss the circuit a little bit, of course, and we knew you had the level to play another 5 years if you wanted. But at our age, after decades of living out of suitcases in a new country every week for 8 months a year, the timing of your retirement felt completely natural.

Imran Mirza: Late in 2004, we did not expect you to make the main draw of the 2005 Australian Open, and for the 1st time in our lives we had saved enough money to perform Hajj on our own. Once you commit to Hajj, you do not cancel it, so we traveled to Mecca while Nasima’s best friend Neela and her daughter Anuja accompanied you to Melbourne. We were staying inside the pilgrimage tents in Mina when I glanced at my phone and saw around 100 missed calls! My 1st thought was panic because young Anam was back home in Hyderabad, and I feared something terrible had happened.

Imran Mirza: When I finally called back our friend Kanan, he was shouting with excitement: “Sania has reached the 3rd round of the Australian Open and she is playing Serena Williams!” Everyone inside our tent in Mina offered to pray for your victory, though I told them there were much bigger things to pray for at Hajj! Minutes later, my phone rang from an unknown number—it was an Indian sports journalist saying, “Sir, Sania is playing Serena Williams and I want to come interview you right now!” I told him, “That is impossible, I am sitting in a tent among millions of pilgrims in the middle of Hajj.” And he replied, “Just give me your tent number, sir—because I am also performing Hajj right now and I want your reaction!” That is how surreal that week was.

Imran Mirza: During the morning practice session before that evening final, I saw you nervous for the 1st time in your life. Normally you are such a cool customer before big finals, but that morning you were spraying balls all over the practice court. I walked up to you and said, “Just calm yourself down—everything will fall into place once the match starts.” That evening our players’ box on Centre Court was packed with friends, cricketers, and Bollywood guests including Javed Akhtar, Farhan Akhtar, and Huma Qureshi. You and Martina lost a tight 1st set 5-7, won the 2nd-set tiebreak 7-4, and then fell behind 2-5 in the 3rd set—at which point I genuinely thought our Wimbledon dream might be slipping away.

Imran Mirza: Somehow the 2 of you produced brilliant tennis to level the final set at 5-5, and at that exact moment play was suspended for fading light so they could close the Centre Court roof and turn on the floodlights. Because it became an indoor delay, I was allowed into the locker room while both you and Martina were on the physio tables suffering from cramps! Just to take the tension off your shoulders, I told both of you: “As far as I am concerned, you have already won this match by fighting back from 2-5 down to 5-5 in a Wimbledon final. From here on, only 1 thing matters—play to your strengths. Sania, if you see a chance to rip a big forehand, go for it. Martina, if you see a volley at the net, put it away.” You walked back out under the roof and lights, won 7 of the last 8 points, and clinched the Wimbledon title! Right on match point, because I was fasting for Ramadan, your friend Eba handed me a date (khajur) in the players’ box and said, “Uncle, break your fast with this khajur and pray—she is going to win this point.” And you won the championship right then.

1. 1 habit of Sania’s that has not changed in years: Nasima immediately answered “Anger and stubbornness,” while Imran answered “Relaxing at home”—with Sania laughing that both are accurate: she is stubborn and loves staying home.

2. 1 thing Sania is most particular about at home: Nasima joked “Relaxing in pyjamas,” before Imran nailed the exact answer: keeping everything neat, clean, and in strict order (which Sania admitted is her OCD trait).

3. What Sania finds hardest to forgive: Both parents immediately answered “Lies,” which Sania confirmed 100 percent.

4. Which part of her career took the biggest emotional toll: Nasima and Imran pointed to the flag controversy in Perth, Australia, when Sania was ready to walk away from tennis.

5. 1 thing Sania misses most about professional tennis: Imran answered “Competition” (definitely not the travel!) and Nasima added “Winning and walking onto the court”—both spot-on.

6. Sania’s way of showing love without saying it: Nasima guessed “Giving gifts,” while Sania revealed her other love language is feeding people.

7. Something Sania is surprisingly bad at: After Imran sweetly said “Trusting everyone too easily,” Sania revealed the simple everyday answers: drawing and cooking—noting she only learned how to crack an egg 3 years ago, though she can make chai with PG tea bags and Rainbow milk!

8. 1 thing Sania pretends to enjoy but secretly dislikes: Nasima immediately answered “Parties” and Imran added “Making small talk with people she is not close to”—both 100 percent right.

9. What Sania struggles with most as a mother to Izhaan: Imran and Nasima agreed it is having to be the strict disciplinarian with Izhaan (“Izzy”) and then feeling guilty afterward because nobody else at home is strict with him.

10. Sania’s guilty food pleasure & her stress indicator: Biryani, along with kalakand and small pedas (the only 2 sweets she loves)—while her go-to stress relief is hitting the gym (“When you see me super fit and going to the gym non-stop, that means I am highly stressed!”). And when Sania noted that her parents were the only guests all season who did not play pickleball on the show, Imran signed off with the ultimate purist line: “That is why we play tennis—we don’t play pickleball!”