Sania Mirza Skips Australian Open with Knee Injury

India’s Sania Mirza will be absent from next month’s Australian Open after picking up a knee injury. There are chances that she could go in for a surgery. She is said to be suffering from a condition called jumper’s knee in her right leg. For the uninitiated, jumper’s knee is a painful condition of the knee caused by inflammation or small tears in the tendon of the patella.

Sania won the Australian Open women’s doubles title in 2016 with long-time teammate Martina Hingis before splitting in August. The 31-year-old said that she might have to go for a surgery. She will be aiming for a Roger Federer-like comeback when she recovers.

Sania said, “It’s kind of serious. Surgery is probably on the cards. I will be out for a few months for sure. I’m okay to walk but it’s painful when I’ve to change directions, when you actually go on to play, that’s the biggest problem. I can run straight but not able to do plyometrics stuff. My doctors told me to take a couple of months off and then see how it feels before it gets into a process of either surgery or injections. When I saw them, the pain was not less after two months. Now we have to take a call. It’s a little bit up in the air, I can’t tell you a definitive next. So I will be missing the Australian Open for sure. It won’t be before a couple of months at least.”

She spoke on the upcoming Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games next year. Sania said, “Hopefully I will be okay for that. Every time people ask me about plans and I always say as tennis players we don’t know about our health, we don’t know where we will be at that point. It’s one year, it’s a long time. Anything can happen. Hopefully i’ll be healthy again and I’ll be able to play. After 15 years, it’s not such a big thing to be out for a few months. It did wonders for Roger -’ he went out for six months and he has not lost a match since… Hopefully that can happen to me as well.”

Sania Mirza on Sports in India

Sania bemoaned the lack of a proper sporting system in India. She believes that it is the main impediment to the progress of tennis. She said “There is no system. I’ve been saying that for the last 15 years. I wish them if there was only one problem… But the first step is ‘how do I go about it if I want my child to start playing tennis?’ We can do our part but that’s not the way to produce champions year after year. That’s why we have one champion in 30 years.”

“There are many issues. We still have to make our own mistakes, learn from it, and in the meantime most of us fizzle out and there are some of us who are fortunate enough to come through despite the system. It’s the sad part which is why events like this are so important which is why we are here. Even if one child picks up a tennis racket, I would feel we have done justice by coming here. We are here to support tennis. It’s a sport that is growing over the years in India. We are hoping that more and more kids are inspired by us. It’s great to be back in Kolkata, and greater to be for an event that promotes tennis.”