Indian Tennis super star Sania Mirza had created sensations from last few months. She has won the world no.1 Title in women’s doubles. Sania Mirza had bought a new look for the tennis in India. She had won many championships which made India proud. Now Indian Government is planning to recommend the prestigious Rajiv Khel Ratna Award to Sania Mirza.

Sania is the second tennis player to be nominated for this award so far. While from other games, Cricket – Rohit Sharma, Shooting – Jitu Rai, gymnast Dipa Karmakar, hockey player P R Sreejesh, wrestling duo of Bajrang and Babita, athlete M R Poovamma, shuttler K Srikanth and boxer Mandeep Jangra were among the 17 sports-persons list for this year’s Arjuna Award.

Every year, Indian government appreciates the sports persons who performed so well in that year with these awards. Sania had created history by becoming the first Indian to achieve doubles Grand Slam along with her partner Martina Hingis inWimbledon. Earlier Leander Paes was named for this award. Paes had been awarded in 1996 when he achieved Bronze medal in Atlanta Olympics.

Besides doing well on the professional circuit, Sania had also won the gold medal and the bronze medal in the mixed and women’s doubles categories of the 2014 Asian Games in Incheon. Sania earlier had won the Arjuna award in 2004 and was recommended first for the top award this year. In 2006, she was bestowed the Padma Shri – the country’s civilian honour.

Rohit has been India’s batting sensation in the ODIs and became the highest individual scorer with a knock of 264 against Sri Lanka last year. Thus there many sports-persons this year who performed up to the mark and got fame in their designations. All these sports-persons had worked hard and are being awarded for this prestigious awards.

Sania’s name was recommended by a Sports Ministry-constituted awards committee headed by Justice V K Bali. This committee also included athelets such as Dola Banerjee, M M Somayya and Bhogeshwar Baruah and sports journalists apart from top officials of the Sports Ministry. These names will be sent to the Sports Minister who will decide the final list of names to be awarded.

The awards will be given by the President Pranab Mukherjee on August 29 on the occasion of National Sports Day. The Khel Ratna carries prize money of Rs 7.5 lakh along with a citation, while the Arjuna awards come with a cash prize of Rs 5 lakh and a citation.