- India’s former world doubles No.1 looks at her season ahead with Tokyo Olympics an added motivation.
Returning to the professional tour after the pandemic-induced break and having herself recovered from Covid-19 in January, Mirza will play the WTA Qatar Total Open in Doha starting on Monday. Using her protected ranking of world No. 9 to get into the tournament, the Indian will partner 40th-ranked Andreja Klepac of Slovenia. They will open their campaign against Kichenok twins Lyudmyla and Nadiia of Ukraine.
Getting back to tennis in January 2020 after a two-year maternity break, the six-time Grand Slam doubles and mixed champion won her first tournament on return at Hobart International. The pandemic forced the season to be suspended a couple of months later, forcing Mirza to bide her time again. In this chat, the 34-year-old former world No. 1 talks about the physical and mental toll the virus has taken, what she expects from her latest comeback and why the Tokyo Olympics remains a motivating factor.
How challenging was the period mentally?
When I had Covid it was pretty hard. Shoaib (Malik, her cricketer husband) was in a different country when I tested positive, and I immediately had to isolate. My son (Izhaan, 2) was with me in Dubai; my parents or nobody else were there. The nanny also tested positive a couple of days later. So Izhaan was all alone, and my sister had to fly down overnight. It’s the uncertainty of it which is really scary. Nobody really knows how your body is going to react - you feel like you’re getting better and then the next morning you feel really sick. But for me, that one night where Izhaan had to be alone with a house help that he hadn’t been around with for a long time was really hard, even though we were in the same apartment. It’s been tough on him as well. He didn’t see me for 11 days. Since then, he has been clinging to me. It’s almost like he feels I’m going to leave again!
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