The Best Role Model: Sania Mirza emerged as the universal choice

The Best Role Model: Sania Mirza emerged as the universal choice

Sania Mirza, Tennis player : 8.65 Points

Achievement: 9.1
Personality: 8.4
Courage: 7.9
Overall admiration: 9.2

Mothers want their daughters to be like Sania. By a strange coincidence, their daughters want to be like her too. What is this about? Well, of course, it’s about talent and grit. She may not have won a Grand Slam event yet, but she did zoom from World No. 206 to No. 31 in 2005.

Made a wild-card entry into the Australian Open, stormed her way into the fourth round of the US Open, became the only Indian to win a WTA title. And, not to forget, she’s already raked in quarter-of-a-million dollars in prize money. But equally, it’s about Sania’s style: she’s confident without being brash. She’s open yet private. She handles stardom with amazing poise but hasn’t forgotten how to be a 19-year-old. And don’t miss the nose-ringed, short-skirted, T-shirted elan with which she soars above tired debates about ‘tradition’ and ‘modernity’.