Indian Star Tells of Life and Marriage in Media Fishbowl

Paul Crock/Agence France-Presse â€" Getty Images Sania Mirza touches hands with Bob Bryan of the United States on the fifth day of the Australian Open.

MELBOURNE, Australia â€" Sania Mirza of India is the most celebrated female athlete in South Asia.

Mirza’s movements on and off a tennis court, including her surprise 2010 marriage to a Pakistani cricket player, are the staple of tabloids and television across the vast subcontinent of 1.7 billion people.

Cementing their rock-star status, Mirza, 26, and her husband, Shoaib Malik, 30, appeared on India’s version of “Dancing with the Stars.”

On the air, reported the Times of India, “ania also talked about the ordeal they faced â€" the controversies surrounding their marriage â€" and how constant surveillance by the media almost took a toll on their personal life.”

That experience is one of the subjects Mirza said she intends to relate in an autobiography for which she has written “19 or 20″ chapters with her father. A final chapter is probably a year away, she said.

Even for tennis players on the world tour, who are used to traveling through a maze of unfamiliar cultures, the life of Sania might seem unreal. There was, for example, a tennis tournament in Calcutta.

“I remember having a thousand people for security,” Mirza said. “I couldn’t leave the hotel room without informing about five different people. And even when I did, I had a car in front of me and I had a car behind me. I had a guy sitting with me.”

Authorities had braced for what was perceived as a potential threat from enraged followers of a respecte! d Muslim cleric, who was quoted as saying Mirza, a practicing Muslim, should not play in a short tennis skirt.

Nothing happened.

“Months later,” she said, the cleric denied the making the remarks, telling reporters, “‘I never said that, they just came and asked me, ‘Is it okay, is it cool’ So he said, ‘no it’s not, but I’m very proud of the fact that she’s a Muslim and she’s doing what she is.’”

The cleric’s expression of pride was not included in the story, Mirza said.

Mirza’s marriage to to Malik, a former captain of the Pakistani team, astonished people in both countries, she said, because the pair, who met in Australia in 2004, had hidden their relationship.

“We were both high profile on that side of the world,” she said. “So I think that, because of the political situation or whatever it is between India and Pakistan, everyone was a little startled by it.”

“I think tennis teaches you that, and sport teaches you that religion an color and race and country is the last thing that you look at when you meet a person.

“And I think that’s the beautiful part about sports,” Mirza said. “I married the person I loved and he married the person he loved.”

Their marriage was nearly blocked by a claim that Malek remained married to another Pakistani woman. Despite denials, he reportedly signed a divorce decree five days before he and Mirza were married in two ceremonies, one in Hyderabad, India, the other in Lahore, Pakistan.

The couple reportedly resides in Dubai, although Mirza lists Hyderabad as her residence in Women’s Tennis Association records.

“Against All Odds,” Mirza said, is her preferred title for the book, a work in progress for about 18 months. Its publication has been delayed by two events, she said.

Last summer, Mirza and Mahesh Bhupathi, a leading Indian player, won the French Open Mixed Doubles title, a Grand Slam crown that could not be ignored in the book, she said.

! Then, as ! the players prepared for the Summer Olympics, a dispute broke out between Bhupathi and Leander Paes, another leading Indian player and an estranged former doubles partner of Bhupathi’s.

Mirza found herself caught in the middle when the Indian tennis federation intervened, announcing that she would be paired with Paes. She was not consulted, she said.

“Our federation was basically pacifying Leander Paes, and saying ‘You know, okay, you don’t need to play with Mahesh, but here you go, you know, you can play with Sania.’”

Mirza called the decision “a little male chauvinistic.”

“As a woman, I cannot accept to be treated,” she said, “as a bait to, like, pacify someone else, because, you know, he’s unhappy that something’s not going his way.”

The contenders have publicly patched up their differences, Mirza said: “I think we’ve all kind of come up to the conclusion we’re all trying to make Indian tennis better in tandem, and we have to work together.€

For the moment, Mirza has chosen to play mixed doubles here at the Australian Open with Bob Bryan of the United States. They are seeded third and face a quarterfinal match on Thursday. If they win the championship, Mirza would include details of their title in her book; she won the mixed doubles title here with Bhupati in 2009.

Last summer’s controversy involving Bhupathi and Paes, told from her point of view, will be part of her effort to write about “things that have never come out,” she said.

Fourteen months ago, Mirza told Serena Menon of the Hindustan Times that the book “is about a side of me that very few people know.”

What might â€" or might not â€" surprise Christians and Muslims who read it would be Mirza’s view of the everyday reality of religious beliefs.

“I’m not a perfect Muslim, I think none of us are perfect human beings,” Mirza said in an interview on Monday at Melbourne Park. “I do the five pillars of Islam, you know, I pray five! times a ! day.”

Like some ordinary Christians, Mirza said, she does not adhere to every tenet of her faith. “There’s lots of things in Christianity which you’re not supposed to do but you still do them.”

“I don’t think I need to get into explaining myself as to why I’m doing something or why I’m not. I think it’s between me and my God.

Even so, her side of the religious issue will be included in the book, she said: “I owe it to my family and to myself to put it out there because a lot of misconceptions have taken place.”

Mirza said she wants to play on the international tennis tour “for a few more years.” Her current rankings are 282th in singles and 12th in doubles.

Composing a book in the middle of a career is difficult, she said

“What happens is that every time I try” to write a final chapter, she said, “something major happens in my life.”

So, instead of “Against All Odds, ” which is the title of a 1984 Hollywood movie and a title sng recorded by an English singer, Phil Collins (“Against all odds, take a look at me now.”), another title might be in order.

Perhaps “Adventure Interrupted” would be better.