ain't no cosmic lottery

My country-woman gets some well deserved converage on the BBC. Her success ain't no cosmic lottery.

The girl who is breaking barriers

Sania Mirza, the first Indian woman to get to the third round of a tennis grand slam, has a long way to go but her confidence may get her there, says leading Indian sportswriter Rohit Brijnath.

Sania Mirza's serve won't win any awards for design and her toss is so high you can have a cigarette waiting for it to come down. She is a few biryanis (flavoured rice) heavier that an elite athlete can afford to be and her acceleration on court is more Ford than Ferrari.

But no big deal; this you can teach an 18-year-old. What you can't is chutzpah, and toughness, and Sania Mirza has both. Though when I first saw her, it was hard to believe. For a while at the Australian Open, and only that, Sania Mirza froze. You could see it in her awkwardness when matches began, as if the enormity of the moment had short-circuited her brain, as if nerves had locked her elbow and anxiety shackled her feet. So everyone feels suffocated under pressure, everyone chokes. Even Australian Open champion Marat Safin, he said so himself.

Bolder generation

Mirza, who was turned away by her first coach when six, was now playing in the main draw of a grand slam singles for the first time; a teenager out of Hyderabad was rubbing shoulders with a muscular, glittering Serena Williams. Hell, a choke made sense. Indian athletes anyway, at least in the past, were known to go a little weak-kneed when confronted by an alien environment. Raised amid inadequate facilities, poorly travelled, physically out-matched, assisted by inferior coaches, awe followed them on a leash. But this is a bolder generation, more likely to shrug off the cloak of intimidation, and it is somewhat apparent in Virender Sehwag's audacity, in Irfan Pathan's cool debut in Australia, in Anju George's resolve in the long jump arena. These athletes, and they are a growing tribe, believe they belong. It's not something learnt from a coach or found in a textbook, but a self-belief that swirls in an individual athletes' mind. And it is what Mirza has. Quite simply, Mirza thawed at the Australian Open after the odd hesitant set, she folded her nerves as she does her spectacles, put them aside and embraced the moment. She let her forehand sing, and her small fist pump, and her mouth grimace; there was a sense she enjoyed this metallic taste of battle and could do with some more.

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