Stardom comes at a cost. And sometimes that cost is a heavy price to pay. Being in the spotlight is not as easy and comfortable as it seems. When you first fall into the hands of fame, you see the world through shades of pink and everything is rosy. The perks of relentless flattery and the paycheck is tempting. But once the glamor wears off, the uglier layers of the celebrity world are exposed one by one, until one realizes it’s just a sad little life that smacks of despair. Everyone wants a piece of their star, and some literally want it. Your privacy becomes a thing of the past. Your whole life is completely transformed into the facade you had initially put up to get his attention. And now you just want to be left alone for at least a few minutes. Life becomes a paradox.
Tennis stars often achieve celebrity status quickly due to the global audience. Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Serena Williams, Venus Williams, Maria Sharapova, Martina Hingis, Leander Paes and others are examples of famous famous tennis players. Sania Mirza may not be a global celebrity, but she sure is all the rage in India.
Sania is a prolific tennis player. She rose to fame quite quickly and has managed to stay in the spotlight ever since. The fact that she is quite easy on the eyes also did wonders for Sania Mirza’s profile outside of the tennis world. She juggled championship titles and photo shoots. She was the quintessential sports star celebrity. She was everywhere: national television, billboards, the Internet, magazines, and even newspapers. It was this overexposure that finally finished it off. She began to court one controversy after another, or rather, the controversy she stalked her like a lovesick psychopath. From criticism from Muslim fans for inappropriate clothing choices to her own wedding, she has run into countless troubles throughout her career. She was photographed with her feet near the Indian flag and labeled unpatriotic; she was vulgarly photographed by paparazzi who are twisted on her heads; she broke off her engagement to her childhood sweetheart citing compatibility issues that painted her in a very unflattering light; she then married Pakistani cricketer, Shoaib Malik, which became the icing on the cake. After one particular point, Sania got so frustrated that she decided to stop performing in India for a while, as every time she did, she was in the news for the wrong reasons.