Sania Mirza at the Indian Merchants' Chamber

Sania sets her eyes on the Australian OpenAce Tennis star Sania Mirza gives a sneak peek of her ups and downs in the Tennis career and personal life during an interactive session organized by Indian Merchants’ Chamber Mumbai, December 19, 2011: The ace Tennis star from India, Sania Mirza has her all focus on the Australian Open for the year 2012, revealed the India woman Tennis icon in a candid chat with Divya Palat, a theatre personality. The interactive session was organized under ‘Youth Connect Initiative’ by Ladies Wing & Young Leaders’ Forum of Indian Merchants’ Chamber (IMC). Sania was as strong and sharp in responding to the questions as she is on the tennis court on being served with questions by Divya in presence of the eminent women and personalities from the India Inc and young students at IMC on Monday evening. She rather aced out the audience with her wit and bold answers.

“I am focusing on Australian Open and preparing hard for it. There is a lot of time to go for the event and anything can happen in between,” Sania said while responding to her plans for 2012.About the controversies surrounding her throughout the career, she said, “I never paid attention to the opinions of the people. They have opinions and I do have mine. I have never responded to the controversies on what I wear, whom I marry and what I talk about and hence, why should it matter?”

When Divya touched upon her much talked about marriage with a Pakistani national, she said, “It’s about two people getting married irrespective of the nationality. Why should nationality come in between? I was asked if this would improve the political relations between the two countries and I did not see any sense in such questions.”Recalling an interesting incident during her wedding days, Sania said, “The media was camping outside my home and a chai-waala opened up his shop to cash-on the media frenzy. There have been good and bad experiences but because I have been seeing the media glamour from very early age, I have grown up to accept it.”