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SANIA Mirza has admitted the pressure on her is “growing by the day” as the tennis player adapts to life as India`s first female sports star.Ever since she won the junior girls title at Wimbledon in 2003, an achievement which saw her favourite cricketer and India icon Sachin Tendulkar gift her a sportscar, Mirza`s career has been on an upward path.Last year she became the first Indian woman to break into the world`s top 50, the first to win a tournament and to reach the fourth round of a Grand Slam event.
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More Sania Mirza News >>All these feats led to the now 19-year-old Mirza being named `Newcomer of the Year` on the women`s tour.As her tennis profile rose the Muslim teenager also found herself having to cope with attacks from some clergy unhappy with the outfits, unexceptional compared to those say of Serena Williams, she was wearing on court.And Mirza, who won her first-round match at the DFS Classic WTA grasscourt event in Birmingham on Tuesday, with a 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 defeat of Ukraine`s Alona Bondarenko, admitted life in the spotlight was far from an easy ride.”After what happened last year there`s a lot of pressure on me, with people expecting me to do a lot better than I did,” she said.”The pressure is growing by the day. Every match, whether I win or lose, people expect me to do better than I ever can.”That is something that as an athlete you go through day in and day out, although my upbringing is such I feel I can ignore it.”It is something you need to learn to block out. It is hard to do all the time because there are occasions when you feel pressure. That is when family helps.”

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Sania Mirza, seen here in February 2006, reached the third round of a WTA Tour event for the first time in eight months
BIRMINGHAM (England): Sania Mirza reached the third round of a WTA Tour event for the first time in eight months on Wednesday, overcoming fitness worries, rain-sodden conditions, and Shenay Perry in three sets at the DFS Classic.The Indian star, who has been struggling with back problems this year, was in decent enough shape against the world number 72 from the United States to underline her considerable potential on grass with a 7-5, 6-7 (5/7), 6-3 victory.The world number 41 from Hyderabad delivered uninhibited flat hitting which causes the ball to stay down lower on this surface, making it a potent threat, and she was unafraid to take risks on the big points.But Mirza did not consolidate a lead of a set and a service break, and eventually making hard work of a contest which was extended by an aggravating 80-minute rain delay soon after she had let slip her second set advantage.This may have been partly caused by cumulative pressure from a moderate sequence of results and possibly the realisation that the draw, without the third-seeded Daniela Hantuchova in her section, is opening up invitingly.”After last year there has been a lot of pressure on me. And of course people expect me to do a lot better than I did last year,” said Mirza.”I am going to take it one at a time and not worry about Wimbledon, or even next week. I only want to worry about tomorrow.
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More Sania Mirza News >>“But pressure is growing by the day. People expect me to do better and it’s part and parcel of my life and I have to learn how to block everything out.”In conditions which made serve more important, Mirza secured the only break of the first set at the psychologically crucial moment in the eleventh game, and when she broke to lead 2-1 and 3-1 in the second set, seemed well on her way.But as in her opening win against Alona Bondarenko, she seemed to allow her mind to waver a little, while Perry developed more rhythm with an intelligent game in which she mixed sliced drives skillfully in with her routine topspin, and sometimes made ambushing net attacks.Even then Perry seemed to be heading for defeat for she followed her break to 3-3 by double-faulting to go 3-4 and hurled down her racket and broke it.She escaped a code violation warning for that, and also escaped with the set on a tiebreak after Mirza overhit a backhand to miss her point for 5-3.But Mirza played more steadily throughout the third set, breaking to lead 4-2 and then holding her advantage until the end.”The court was a bit different from that in my opening round,” she said.”The rain made the conditions heavier and harder to keep your focus. “I tried to finish it too early in the second set — I was a little bit impatient. But I knew I had to hang on to my service games because she served so well, and after this I did that.”If the 14th-seeded Indian can now beat another American, the qualifier Meilen Tu, she will earn herself a place in the quarterfinals. 

Birmingham: Notwithstanding her recent poor shows, Sania Mirza’s popularity transcends boundaries and the teenager from Hyderabad was the cynosure of all eyes when she declared open a tennis school here.Currently here to participate in the WTA Tier III DFS Classic, Sania took time off her preparation to open a brand new tennis facility at Harborne Hill School in Edgbaston, Birmingham.Immensely popular here, the World No. 41 shared her experience with the students of Harborne Hill and Chadvale, a local junior school.

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