Women In Sports

"Leaves me with no choice but to laugh. I am pretty sure these are not the pre-wedding jitters or butterflies in the stomach my married cousins were talking about!"

"Too much going on, never in my life thought that I'd had to worry about anything of this sort, rather than my mehendi!"

"When I got married I thought I would have kids early, but the more I'm playing, the more I'm enjoying it. I really enjoy competing."

"I'm partial to stilettos. Stilettos and long, flowing dresses are my new favourites. I like my dresses in lively shades these days, a teal or bright mix of orange and red."

"In life there's stuff you can control and stuff you can't. There's nothing you can do about it. No point getting angry and upset because it's beyond your control. As a professional athlete, you learn to roll with the punches."

"Whether it is tennis or any other sport, the situation for women now is far better than it was 10 years ago when I had started playing. Now, people support and promote their daughters to play and take up sports as their career. It wasn't the case during my time. I am glad that things are looking better for girls. Taking a step in this direction, I too have opened my training academy in Hyderabad. Sport for girls in India is in great shape now."

"We players are as normal human beings as anyone else, and we also have the right to live a normal life. I don't understand why people talk so much about the way we dress up, how we walk, what we eat, and every little detail of ours. Players are the real heroes. Sports have both respect and fame, and I am fortunate enough to be a sportsperson."

"I'm not a part of the glamour industry. I would like to focus on my game, and there are minimal chances of me getting into films."

"Fitness is defined differently by everyone, but for me, the most important thing is being healthy. As tennis players, what we do is not the healthiest thing. We almost abuse our bodies."

"Of all the sports I've seen, I think tennis is the most competitive sport in the world. Because we are playing week after week, 36 weeks a year competing against the same players over and over again."

"Well, I'm not a yoga person. I've been told to try yoga. I just can't get myself to do yoga. I pray four or five times a day so it's about 10 minutes of total concentration... Also because when you're trying to focus only on God, you're trying to get everything else out of your head and just have that single focus. Trust me, it's very hard to do that four or five times a day. I mean, it's hard enough to do it once a day, but four or five times a day to just switch off the world and focus everything on God is difficult to do, and I do try to do that. I think that's one of the reasons yoga is not part of my routine and I feel this is better because I am actually being constructive, but in yoga I'm just going blank."

"The honour and respect that a country earns by being represented at mega-sporting events like the Grand Slams has to be seen to be believed, experienced to be fully understood."

"She is betraying both nations, she neither lives here (India) nor in Pakistan, but she resides in Dubai. We request the Indian Government not to allow Sania to represent India and let her reside in Dubai."

"She is very typical of her generation - these new teenagers who are not quite the sex, drugs and rock'n'roll generation of Sixties America but who are very in your face, very confident and very brash. This kind of attitude is not unique to her: you see teenagers like her in the streets. She represents a new India that doesn't care what anyone thinks."

"She is fearless about going for the shots. She just believes that all her shots will go in."

"India is the country that produced such cultured male players as Vijay Amritraj and Ramesh Krishnan, and she might have been expected to place as much emphasis on old-style craft as crunch. In fact, her all-out aggression, underpinned by the sort of destructive forehand that was the signature of her role model Steffi Graf's game, makes her a very contemporary player indeed. To become a top-10 player, she has to work on her mobility and add some dimension to a game that is too dependent on the weighty forehand."

"She proves that young Muslim girls can make a mark if they are given the right chances... Many Muslims in India are economically and educationally backward; she has given the community new hope."

"We are proud of her achievement. In India there are not many other young female role models like her."

"When she first emerged, she was celebrated as an example of how well religious integration was working in a country that has a Muslim president, a Sikh prime minister, and a Christian leader of its Congress party. The controversy over her clothes was seen as an absurdity by mainstream Muslim leaders."

"The dress she wears on the tennis court not only doesn't cover large parts of her body but leaves nothing to the imagination of voyeurs. She will undoubtedly be a corrupting influence."

"Indian Gold, Indian tea and Indian petrol to the nation: When car manufacturer Hyundai made her brand ambassador for their Getz model, production capacity doubled. She had not yet won a major tournament, but her fame was spreading well beyond Asia: soon she would be on the front of Time magazine and selected by the New Statesman as one of 10 young people with the potential to change the world."

"With her diamond nose stud and multiple ear-piercings, she brought glamour to the game. Advertisers and corporate sponsors rushed to sign her and soon her face was selling."

"She is a very talented player. I see a very good future for her."

"Injuries can end a sportsperson's career and I am glad I have been able to make a comeback and make it to the world's top 10 in doubles and have done reasonably well in mixed doubles. I always believed I had tennis left in me and I am grateful to god for this opportunity."

"I will do all I can to win a medal [2012 Olympics]. To see the National flag go up while standing on the podium is the proudest moment in an athlete's life and I will want to experience that for myself in London. Please just keep praying for the entire Indian contingent. We have a really good chance of doing well at these Games and it will provide a huge fillip to Indian Olympic sport if we are all able to perform to potential."

"I think people tend to forget that as celebrities we are still human. We have the same emotions - we cry, we have fun, we laugh, we get sad, and we get hurt. When something is written about you, which millions of people are reading, and it is not true, imagine how hurtful it can be."

"Six-year-old girls in a place like Hyderabad did not play; tennis was a recreation like badminton or gardening. So I draw inspiration from my parents. Steffi Graf has always been my tennis idol; always Steffi Graf. Just the way she was and the way she carried herself on the court and off the court. She does inspire me today. Everyone asks me "Who is your favorite tennis player?" And I always say "Steffi Graf." I just cannot imagine anyone being better than her, you know? I think a lot of people love Steffi Graf for the way she was on and off the court."

"My serve used to be a weakness and I don't think it's a weakness anymore. I'm trying to come a lot more to the net and trying to be more offensive — not in terms of hitting the ball harder, which I think is quite hard for me to hit it any harder than I do — but in terms of building the point and coming to the net and being offensive at the net. A lot of the top girls barely do (come to net) except like Mauresmo or Henin does it a little bit, but a lot of girls don't do it."

"There's no doubt that my forehand and backhand can match anyone, it's about the place that they're put in. I can hit the ball as hard as anyone can, but I think it's more about where I'm hitting the ball. Instead of 90 mph it can just be a 50 mph forehand, but the placement is more important. So I've been working on that a lot more. When you're working on things, maybe your performance drops a little bit or you're trying new things in every tournament you're going in so that's just a process of being an athlete because you're learning, you're adding new things to your game. When I sit with my notes, for instance, instead of hitting a hard forehand return, I would like to hit an angled forehand return instead."

"One win and you’re on top of the world. Lose in the first round of the next tournament; you’re back to reality."

"Negativity sells. I have been labelled a rebel. If I had been one, would I have got married at 23? Would I have been a straight student?"

"Well, I've grown up on the tennis circuit which has friendships with people from diverse religions, races, backgrounds and scores of different countries across the globe. I think this experience broadened my horizons. I can comfortably embrace relationships on a personal level while looking beyond narrow constraints."

"I have a passion for playing tennis and enjoy the workload and struggles of performing in this amazing global sport."

"A defeat at any stage, whether in the first round or in the final of a major tournament, is always disappointing. But as sportsmen, we learn to pick ourselves up to bounce back and move on for the next challenge."

"It's been 20 years since I started playing tennis and I've spent a decade playing singles and doubles professionally. I still enjoy singles and may play in an occasional tournament or at the Fed Cup if my country needs me. But I think the time has now come for me to completely shift my focus onto doubles."

"One of the thrills of playing at the top tennis centres of the world is to see the Indian flag go up whenever I`m participating in these events. That's enough motivation for any Indian who has the opportunity to perform at these tournaments."

"On the tennis court, one needs a cool temperament, tremendous ball sense, reflexes, speed, hand-eye co-ordination, power, timing and peak physical fitness. Off the court, the player and support team need skills in planning, execution, travel, an ability to raise funds when needed, and several other talents."

"All I want to do is play."

"Clothing is my personal thing. Every time I get dressed, I fear that it will be the next three days' wear"

"Playing for the country is an honour. The ultimate honour, in fact. If you want to look at it as pressure, you will find it very difficult to cope with the expectations of a billion people. I look at it as an opportunity, as being among the few who have been given this opportunity to make the country proud."

"I have been treated as a freak, rather like the fat lady at the circus."

"The work of an enthusiast who has watched and enjoyed cricket with an eye for detail and for character, for adventure and the human reflection beyond the ropes. It will, I fancy, be read with the same pleasure as it was written."

"The Australia of her book is not merely a setting for cricket but a place of interest, of fun and of new impressions"

"As we at all times criticise the Premier for his management of home affairs, call Mr Butler a fool for his Budget, find fault with Beecham's conducting, or Gielgud's performance, can we not, sometimes, say that our cricketers are not quite so brilliant as usual?"

"Very few reporters in Fleet Street can write on the game with as much observation, sense of scene and character, and knowledge of the things that technically and tactically matter."

"A great cricketer must be an artist and express himself in his strokes."

"'This is the stupidest place I have ever visited,' she said. 'I shall never come here again.' The tall man looked at her in silence and nodded. 'Yes, you will,' he said. 'You won't be able to stay away now that you have come.'"

"Now the Englishmen suddenly came to life. Four runs later Harvey received a beast of a ball from Tyson which spat up at him and splashed off his bat to Cowdrey, 104 for 4."

"We say booty. I'm not quite sure about 'posterior'. I'll try to keep that in the back of my mind. 'What are you doing?' 'I'm shaking my posterior.'"

"Andy Murray, he's been joking about myself and him playing a match. I'm like, 'Andy, seriously, are you kidding me?' For me, mens' tennis and womens' tennis are completely, almost, two separate sports. If I were to play Andy Murray, I would lose 6-0, 6-0 in five to six minutes, maybe 10 minutes. No, it's true. It's a completely different sport. The men are a lot faster and they serve harder, they hit harder, it's just a different game. I love to play women's tennis. I only want to play girls, because I don't want to be embarrassed."