Sania Mirza’s Inspirational Message to Parents at Republic Plenary Summit 2025

Sania Mirza may have retired from tennis but she has remained an Indian sports icon. The former tennis player graced the Republic Plenary Summit 2025 and spoke on various aspects of the sports.

A winner of six mixed doubles titles, Sania happens to be one of the most decorated Indian athletes ever to grace the tennis court. Indian women have been breaking all kinds of stereotypes and have scaled new heights in sports. At the Republic Plenary Summit 2025, Sania urges the parents of young girls to encourage their children to pursue sports.

The Padma Shri awardee said, “I would like to tell especially the parents of young girls because that is something I faced. We have enough people telling us that we can’t do something. We just need our parents to tell us that we can. Everything that we do growing up, you can’t do this, you can’t do that, everything is ‘don’t know you can’t do it.’

“So when you have your parents by your side, saying it doesn’t matter how many people say you can’t become a tennis player or whatever else you want to be. I’m telling you the confidence you feel and the kind of inspiration coming from them that something I was very lucky to have.”

She also shared her journey to her Wimbledon title in 2015. Sania opined that she and her parents were a little crazy and it helped them to cross all the hurdles.

I would love to tell parents to try and encourage young girls to take part in something out of the ordinary. Don’t be afraid because I was playing courts made out of cow dung and we said we wanna play Wimbledon one day and they laughed at us. They thought we were crazy and we were a little crazy to dream of to be very honest. But here we are, we got to win Wimbledon.”

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