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New Delhi, Aug 11: Tennis star Sania Mirza has been recommended for the prestigious Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award — the second tennis player to receive the country’s highest sporting honour.
Sania, currently ranked world number one in women’s doubles, scripted history by becoming the first Indian to clinch a women’s doubles Grand Slam when she partnered Swiss great Martina Hingis for the Wimbledon trophy earlier this year.
Leander Paes was the first tennis star to receive the country’s top sport’s honour after he won bronze in the Atlanta Olympics.
Twenty-eight-year-old Sania Mirza, who has won three mixed doubles Grand Slams in her career, beat competition from squash player Deepika Pallikal, discus thrower Vikas Gowda, track and field star Tintu Luka, rising shuttler P V Sindhu, and hockey captain Sardar Singh for the coveted honour.
Besides doing well on the professional circuit, Sania had also won gold and bronze in the mixed and women’s doubles categories of the 2014 Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea.
The Hyderabadi girl had won the Arjuna award in 2004 and was the favourite for the top award this year. In 2006, she was bestowed the Padma Shri — the country’s fourth highest civilian honour.
Sania’s mixed doubles trophies had come in the Australian Open (2009), French Open (2012) and US Open (2014).
Sania’s name was recommended by a committee — composed of Justice V K Bali, a retired High Court Chief Justice of the Kerala High Court — constituted by the Union Sports Ministry.
The committee included eminent athletes and sports journalists apart from top officials of the Sports Ministry.
