The Last Serve: Sania Mirza recounts tennis life with pride ahead of her final bow

DUBAI: Sania Mirza is used to looking back and ahead, it’s part of a tennis player’s journey. Now, for thelast time in her career, on the sidelines of the Dubai Duty Free WTA 1000 Series championship, she looks back at the last 20 years and shares her thoughts in an exclusive chat with TOI. Excerpts:What will you miss the most about tennis?

I will miss the competition, the feeling of winning, the fighting. That feeling of walking onto big courts, walking onto the cheers of crowds, but more than anything else I miss competing. Competing at the highest level, challenging myself every day to be better. That’s in my blood. I will miss that the most. No matter what I do in my life after this, that feeling cannot be replicated. You fought huge battles on the court, you also faced a lot of challenges off it, court cases, threat of fatwas. Looking back at that phase of your life, are you amazed at how you coped?It feels like a distant memory now. I have a very good in-built defence mechanism where I tend to forget andeven omit a lot of the bad stuff that happens in life. I feel that if we must live in the moment, we need to move on. That is the only way to cope. The bad comes and goes. I’m proud of myself to have achieved everything I have achieved. To be the person that I am, to be able to do it in the way that I was able to do it.

(Getty Images)When I look back, yeah it was a lot, it was a lot for any individual let alone for a young girl. I truly believe that without those obstacles I wouldn’t be the human being I am today. I don’t think I would be that woman, that person, I wouldn’t have the strength that I have. I wouldn’t have been this empowered. That’s myjourney and I accept it fully. At what point in your journey did