Mirza Mentors Inspirational Tennis Player

By Parvez Fatteh, Founder of http://sportingummah.com, sports@muslimobserver.com

‘Against All Odds’ is the name of the to-be-released autobiography of India’s best-ever women’s Indian Muslim tennis star Sania Mirza will be providing free training to another budding tennis player Shaik Jafreen, who represented India in the Deaflympics held in Sofia recently.

Jafreen’s family has been struggling to raise funds to sustain her interest in the sport. Early this week, they had also called on Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy to provide financial assistance to help them pursue tennis.

The 15-year-old Jafreen is an Intermediate first year student at KRM Government Junior College in Kurnool, India. Upon hearing of the struggle to raise funds, Mirza offered to take care of the Kurnool girl’s complete training program. “The fact that she is playing tennis despite all odds is itself great for the sport. The whole idea of setting up my academy (Sania Mirza Tennis Academy) is to continue the legacy of tennis in India,” Mirza said. “Rarely, does one come across someone like Jafreen who despite being hearing impaired plays tennis with such passion. It is unfortunate that she had to miss out participating in the 2012 London Paralympics due to some communication gap,” she said.

Mirza will have her autobiography, entitled “Against All Odds” released soon. Mirza is by far India’s greatest female tennis player ever. Most recently she reached the semifinals of the women’s doubles division of the U.S. Open.

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