Dubai: The evolution of Indian tennis ace Sania Mirza continues, albeit this time with the added support of cricketer husband Shoaib Malek as she chose staying healthy as one of her most important goals.
"For me the most important thing will be to stay healthy, and this is merely because I have had such a dismal time dealing with all sorts of injuries. I have not been able to remain healthy since 2005 and I have been very unlucky as I have had to deal with one injury after another," Sania Mirza told Gulf News in an exclusive chat along the sidelines of the 13th Al Habtoor Tennis Challenge that is under way at the Al Habtoor Grand Resort and Spa.
"There are no short-term or long-term goals. The main one is to stay healthy because once you are healthy over a period of nine or 10 months then everything else takes care of itself. So the key lies in being healthy," she insisted.
No favour
The Hyderabad girl, one of the high-profile players at this edition of the annual Al Habtoor Tennis Challenge, should know better after battling one injury after another since turning professional in 2003.
She missed a major part of 2008 due to a wrist injury that surfaced again in 2010, consequently doing her no favour in the WTA rankings.
"This time the wrist was at its worst. There was a time when I could not lift a fork and eat my food, leave alone a tennis racquet. Honestly, I am just happy to be playing tennis again, leave alone winning. It's not easy to come back in a year after being five months off," she remarked.
There were sceptics and doubters, some of them even writing her off completely from the medal list at the Commonwealth Games held in New Delhi and the 16th Asian Games held in Guangzhou last month.
But Mirza proved them all wrong as she took silver in the singles at the Commonwealth Games and a silver and bronze in the mixed and women's singles in China.
