SPORTSPERSON OF THE YEAR
Sania Mirza
Sania Mirza has kept India’s flag flying high across tennis courts of the world. With former Grand Slam singles champion Martina Hingis of Switzerland as her partner, Sania, 29, took the international circuit by storm winning two Grand Slam titles at Wimbledon and the US Open, and seven other World Tennis Association (WTA) tournaments.
They won their last 22 matches from the start of the US Open through wins in Asia at Guangzhou, Wuhan, Beijing and the WTA Finals in Singapore, ending the year with a 55-7 win-loss record.
On December 22, Sania and Martina were named Women’s Doubles World Champions by the International Tennis Federation in recognition of their stupendous success in season 2015. In August, Sania won the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award, India’s highest sporting honour. She became the second tennis player to receive the Khel Ratna after Davis Cupper and former world doubles champion Leander Paes.
Saina Nehwal
In the 2012 London Olympics, Saina Nehwal won a bronze medal to signal that Chinese players were not unbeatable in world badminton. In 2015, Saina became World No. 1, the first non-Chinese in 10 years to wear the crown. Through the year, two non-Chinese shuttlers, Saina and Carolina Marin of Spain, dominated the world’s top tournaments.
It took Saina, 25, hours of rigorous training and special attention from coach Vimal Kumar to reach the top spot. When she began training with coach Vimal Kumar, winning the All England was one of Saina’s biggest goals. No Indian woman has ever achieved this.
Saina went all the way to the title round in March, but lost the final to Carolina in three well-contested games 21-16, 14-21, 7-21. In August, Carolina denied Saina the world title in Jakarta. Saina lost a tough match, but in defeat she established herself as a potent force in world badminton. The real test will be the 2016 Rio Olympics.