WPL 2023: RCB mentor Sania Mirza relishing unique challenge

Sania Mirza may have retired from professional tennis but the Indian ace won’t be putting her feet up to relax just yet.

Barely a month into her retirement, the Indian tennis player will be diving right into her next major role - as mentor of the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) team for the inaugural Women’s Premier League (WPL).

The WPL 2023 is the latest franchise-based T20 cricket tournament, similar to the men’s Indian Premier League (IPL). WPL starts on Saturday.

Speaking to Olympics.com, the six-time Grand Slam tennis champion opened up on how she is preparing for her new role.

“Well, my first response when the Royal Challengers Bangalore approached me for the role was that I can't help much with anything cricket. I've been around cricket a lot…but it's just I've never really been good enough to tell someone what to do,” Sania Mirza said.

Though Sania Mirza was reluctant at first, the RCB management’s response convinced her. 

“So the RCB replied by saying that they don't actually want me for cricket at all. They wanted someone to look after the players’ mentality in terms of what it really takes as young Indian women…to have so many eyes on them, photoshoots, so much spotlight with all the matches being telecast.

“This is the kind of stuff that I have dealt with for the last 20 years. When the stakes are high, people judge you on every single thing that you do. With more adulation also comes more criticism. So that's what they said they wanted me for.”

“If I had someone like that (a mentor) who could help me and be like, 'This is what you should do. This is how you should behave or this is how you should feel or cope with certain things.' It would have been a lot easier for me emotionally and mentally to deal with it,” Sania Mirza added. 

Sania Mirza, who retired from professional tennis last month at the age of 36, won six Grand Slam titles and 44 WTA titles in her 22-year-long professional career. Apart from her successes on the WTA Tour, she is also a four-time Olympian and has won eight medals at the Asian Games.

At Royal Challengers Bangalore, Sania Mirza will be working with established women cricket stars like Indian opener Smriti Mandhana and Australian star all-rounder Ellyse Perry as well as up and coming players like 19-year-old Richa Ghosh, among others. 

Although mentoring cricketers being a tennis player seems challenging, Sania Mirza believes there are several facets of sports in general where her experience can benefit the RCB players. 

“Whatever team (or sport) it might be, we all need to sort of play to each other's strengths and try to hide each other's weaknesses. That's how I learnt to play tennis when I played doubles. And that cannot be different in any other sport. That's how you make a strong and solid team.”

The WPL 2023, which ends on March 26, will feature five teams - Royal Challengers Bangalore, Mumbai Indians, Gujarat Giants, UP Warriorz and Delhi Capitals - competing for the title. The tournament will be played at Navi Mumbai’s DY Patil Stadium and Mumbai’s Brabourne Stadium.