CHENNAI: When Sania Mirza announced her return to the circuit at the end of last year, she routinely had to answer one question. “What was your primary motivating factor to come back?” The former doubles World No 1, when this paper put the same query to her, said: “I still have some tennis left in me. Anything that happens after this in my career will be a plus, a bonus. I also felt I had a responsibility as a woman that some people looked up to sort of show or prove that just because you have a baby, ‘it’s not the end of the world’,”.
On Saturday, she proved her point. In a must-win rubber against Indonesia in the Fed Cup Asia/Oceania Zone Group 1 tie, Ankita Raina and Saina defeated Priska Nugroho and Aldila Sutjiadi 7-6 (4), 6-0. The win was perhaps one of the most important of Sania’s career for it helped India advance to the Fed Cup playoffs for the first time. One only needed to read her quotes on the official website to grasp its significance. “I think we need to exhale and enjoy this moment too, because this is a huge step for women’s tennis in India,” she told the competition’s organisers. “We are coming from a country where women’s tennis was redundant until maybe 15 years ago.”
The 33-year-old played a starring role in the six-team qualifiers, winning all three of her doubles matches (all with Raina). But this wasn’t a team that was solely dependant on the multiple time Major champion, who returned to Fed Cup duties after four years. The in-form Raina won two of her singles rubbers across the meet. The third regular member of the team, Rutuja Bhosale, won three singles matches. That’s why coach Ankita Bhambri said ‘it was an all-round contribution that helped us create history’. “I think all of us brought something to the table,” she told this daily. “Sania’s experience helped, she has played some of the girls before on the circuit but all the players won us points. Rutuja gave us good starts (she won the opening singles against South Korea, Chinese Taipei and Uzbekistan), so this was a team victory from start to finish.”
Even though many in the fraternity were pleasantly surprised when the news came through on Saturday night, Bhambri said the team had believed as soon as the draw was out. “When we gathered in Dubai, we were constantly saying to each other that we had a good chance. All of us had prior knowledge of our opponents, we knew all our games well and what we were capable of. It was only a matter of executing our plans on the day.”Even though the players, Bhambri and captain Vishal Uppal did watch videos of their opponents, they also relied on information from their teammates. “For example, Sania played Peng Shuai this year, Ankita has played a lot of the girls on the circuit and I myself have travelled with a few of the players. So we just shared our thoughts.” India’s next challenge? Against Latvia in a two-legged playoff in April.