Purav Raja made Sania Mirza go through five strokes, real racquet in hand, during the popular ‘Chai with Raja’ Instagram show.
The 33-year-old Sania sportingly obliged and showed, with her razor-sharp responses to a variety of questions, that she could win any contest, with or without a racquet.
Sania, who has known Purav since the age of eight, showed a lot of warmth and camaraderie to make it an enjoyable show for the thousands of tennis enthusiasts who had tuned in.
Mocking that she was honoured to be the first lady on the show, Sania said that she felt offended when Mahesh Bhupathi was the first guest on the show till she saw how “under-prepared’’ he was!
“You know me too well. So, I am nervous,” said the six-time Grand Slam champion before opening up for a lively chat.
Sania pointed out that Jelena Jankovic also had not won a Grand Slam singles title despite being World No. 1, as Purav’s notes had only Dinara Safina’s name. She did get both names.
She recalled five players who had trained with her in December and named the IPL captains of the Hyderabad team with ease.
She stumped Purav by recalling the names of seven Davis Cup team captains — Leander Paes, S.P. Misra, Vijay Amritraj, Anand Amritraj, Mahesh Bhupathi, Rohit Rajpal and Jaidip Mukerjea. She was candid in saying that a lot of people would get that right.
On another note, Sania said Bollywood was close to her heart. She said that many would be able to connect with the inspiring journeys of people who became superstars.
Farah her favourite
She named Farah Khan as her favourite and added Riteish Deshmukh and Salman Khan to the list.
When asked who was more competitive, Paes or Bhupathi, Sania said that both were incredible competitors and it was impossible for her to pick one over the other, as she had won with both.
Naming Steffi Graf as her favourite player, Sania said being World No. 1 in doubles was more satisfying than being 27 in singles because “if you are No. 1 in the world in anything, it is special”.