By the end, we’d given up on superlatives. It was a recurring theme through this year; she’d break one barrier, we’d see it as the ultimate achievement, then she’d go back out and break another. Through every other sports story — the Ganguly-Chappell spat, Liverpool’s win, the Ashes, even Narain Karthikeyan, that other unlikely story — Sania Mirza dominated the headlines like no other single sportsperson.It began, typically, with a bang at the Australian Open, where before you knew it she was creating history by reaching the Third Round and facing Serena Williams. She was then ranked 166; her next moves up the ladder came about by her steady demolition of seeds.
If there were any doubts that this was a fairytale story, they were dispelled when she won the WTA in her hometown, Hyderabad. The bandwagon rolled on, relentlessly, through Dubai and the debris of more seeds fallen by the wayside.
All the while we watched, scarcely daring to believe what was happening. Soon, the world began to take notice. It helped that Sania was young, camera-friendly, hip, smart, well-dressed, nose-ringed and, most of all, an Indian Muslim Woman. The media was putty in her hands. The cover of Time was waiting to be shot.
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