Ms. Namita Nayyar:
You were appointed the UN Women Goodwill Ambassador for South Asia, becoming the first South Asian woman to be appointed as a Goodwill Ambassador in the organization’s history. It has been a true reward for all the hard work. How do you wish to give back to the society through your endeavors?
Ms. Sania Mirza:
Being an UN Women Goodwill Ambassador for South Asia, is a huge honour for me. I’ve been involved with them for a few years now, and the work that we try do, we try to talk to girls and young women about equality, about how they should be treated, and know that they should be treated right and equally. I think that these are the things that we can do, as public figures, we have a platform that we can speak from, where people hear us out. And I feel that women need to start believing that they are equal, for men to believe that they are equal. We do a bunch of things with the UN and I do them separately as well. I usually don’t talk about it, but we do educate over a thousand girls in the family, we give them financial support so that they can get educated, because most girls in this part of the world, their parents don’t allow them to be educated because that’s not the most natural process so we try to make sure these girls have a decent or basic education.
Ms. Namita Nayyar:
You faced a major wrist injury that forced you to give up your singles career and focus on the doubles circuit. What tips would you like to provide to beginners to better cope with such an injury & return back to competition post recovery?
Ms. Sania Mirza:
I’ve had a lot of injuries in my career, but the 3 main surgeries that I’ve had are with my two knees and one wrist. After my wrist, I played singles and doubles for about 8 years and I got 27 in the world singles. After that in 2012, the question was whether to play another year of singles and probably retire, because that’s how much my body will allow, or change my goals and try to become number 1 in the world in doubles and obviously, in hind sight that was the best decision that I could have ever made.
You just have to focus. Coming back from injuries is not about physical struggles, it is also emotional, it is about believing in that body part, and believing that you can be the best that you can be or believing that you can be better than what you were when you got injured. It’s a mental process. When you want to come back from an injury, make sure you’ve got the right team in place, make sure you have the belief in place and make sure you have the right support system.
Ms. Namita Nayyar:
You had once said that “I’m not that fast on my feet”, which you consider your most evident weakness. How do you work on that, to get better in the game?
Ms. Sania Mirza:
Funnily enough, I’m not a fast person in general life. I need to work on that, and it takes a lot for me to be fast in the court because it doesn’t come naturally to me. So I do a lot of court drills, lot of agility stuff, a lot of stuff with the ball drills or cone drills. So there is a bunch of things that we plan out and work out but it just doesn’t come from doing that, you also need a lot of strength. You derive a lot of strength from your gluten and core, so I’ve tried to work on it with that.
Ms. Namita Nayyar:
Women Fitness works with a goal to reach out to women all over the world providing them with best in health, fitness, nutrition, beauty & fashion. What do you wish to say about the website (Womenfitness.org) and a message for our visitors?
Ms. Sania Mirza:
Congratulations to Women Fitness, for contributing for women and spreading the word of health and fitness, and nutrition. I’d just like to say to all the readers that it is a great magazine and it’s a great website to get your health tips from a lot of athletes from around the world, a lot of healthy people, and a lot of fashionable people. And to you guys, keep doing the great work and keep spreading the message of being healthy.
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