Of Sania, Sourav and Narain

THE SPORTING LIFE/AYAZ MEMON - The Times of India: "If Charlotte Cooper had been in Melbourne, Hyderabad or Dubai in the last couple of months, she would have been nonplussed. What fuss over a girl winning a few matches here and there!

The story goes that shortly after winning her first singles Wimbledon title in 1895 Charlotte hopped on to her bicycle and went home where she found her brother Dr Harry Cooper tending to the garden. "What have you been doing Chattie?" he asked. "I’ve just won the Championship," she replied. Her unimpressed brother said nothing and buried himself in the roses once again.

Collective disappointment amongst Indians across the globe when Sania Mirza lost in the quarterfinal of the Dubai Open last week was understandable. Success stories in Indian sport have been rare.

Defeat in competitive sport can provide life’s greatest lessons about how to win. It’s an ego-buster. It sublimates aggression without killing ambition. It creates a fresh perspective of self, opponent, sport and life. Indeed, there is no better reality check.

Sania’s been on a roll in the past couple of months. She’s performed way above her potential and outplayed some high-ranked players. This proves she has the mettle to break into the highest echelons of women’s tennis, but it also means that she now has to reset her benchmark, keep pushing herself up the learning curve and win consistently.

From here it gets tougher. In the top 100 women players, there are at least 40 who are under 22-years-of age, all aiming for the top spot. Only the extraordinary will make it, obviously. "I’m not involved with tennis, I’m committed to it," Martina Navratilova once told a journalist who wanted to know the secret of her success. "