Indian tennis star Sania Mirza is confident of getting over her current injury crisis and bouncing back into the top 50 soon with the help of a new trainer.
Mirza, 21, slipped from a career-best high of 27 in August last year to 70 in the latest WTA rankings after an injury-plagued season in 2008.
‘It is naturally very frustrating for her to miss tournaments,’ Mirza’s father, Imran Mirza, told AFP from the family base in Hyderabad on Friday.
‘But she understands injuries are a tennis player’s professional hazard andpart and parcel of a sportsman’s career. ‘She is very positive and looking forward to bounce back soon,’ he said.
Mirza injured her right wrist during the Indian Wells tournament in March and was forced to have surgery a month later.
She pulled out of the French Open in May-June, lost in the second round at Wimbledon and crashed out in the first round at the Beijing Olympics.
Mirza, who also withdrew from the ongoing US Open, has signed up trainer Amir Takla, a consultant with Tennis Australia.
‘Takla is scheduled to arrive this weekend and will work with Sania for a period of six weeks,’ father Imran said.

NDIAN SHUTTLER Saina Nehwal reached the quarter final of the women’s singles badminton of the Olympics-2008 after defeating her Hong Kong counterpart, Chen Wang on Monday (August 11). Nehwal is presently ranked 15 after posting victory over Wang by 21-19, 11-21, 21-11 in a neck and neck match, held at the Beijing University of Technology Gymnasium today.

India’s tennis ace Sania Mirza has expressed her desire to play exhibition matches in Pakistan if such an opportunity comes her way in future.

Sania, who pulled out of her women’s singles first round match against Czech Iveta Benesova due to a wrist injury, told a group of Pakistani reporters in Beijing that she had no problems playing in Pakistan.

BEIJING  – The Williams sisters cruised into the second round of the Olympic Games tennis singles on Monday, while Indian hope Sania Mirza was forced to retire hurt.
Number four seed Serena, the eight-time Grand Slam champion and a doubles gold medallist from Sydney in 2000 with sister Venus, but making her Olympic singles debut after missing Athens with a knee injury, beat Olga Govortsova of Belarus 6-3, 6-1.

On a day, when the entire Indian contingent’s attention was focused on Abhinav Bindra’s golden effort, Saina Nehwal, the 18-year-old Hyderabadi shuttler, was writing her own script.

Even as most of the scribes at the Badminton Hall made a bee line for the Shooting Range, more than an hour’s ride, Saina shocked the fourth seed and World No. 6 Wang Chen in three games in front of a celebrity audience.