Tennis star Sania Mirza, besides proving herself as an ace tennis player, has evolved herself as a graceful speaker who can shut people up when a stray question comes her way. She can talk smart and deal exceptionally well with journalists. This kickass reply by Sania to a sexist question from a journalist again proves the same!

Sania Mirza launched her autobiography ‘Ace Against Odds’ on Wednesday (July 13) in Hyderabad. Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan launched the book, which captures the 29-year-old’s journey of becoming World’s No.1 player in women’s doubles and the difficulties and challenges faced by her in making her dream come true.

In order to promote her book, Mirza gave interviews to several leading TV channels. In one of the interviews given to India Today TV, Veteran journalist Rajdeep Sardesai put Mirza in a spot, asking her plans about retirement, ‘settling down’ and motherhood. But Mirza didn’t take the question too lightly and fielded off a certain unfortunate question admirably.

Here’s how the conversation went.

Rajdeep: Amidst all the celebrityhood, when is Sania going to settle down? Is it going to be in Dubai? Is it going to be in any other country? What about motherhood… building a family… I don’t see all that in the book, it seems like you don’t want to retire just yet to settle down.

Sania: You don’t think I’m settled?

Rajdeep: You don’t talk about retirement, about raising a family, about motherhood, what’s life beyond tennis is going to be…

Sania: You sound disappointed that I’m not choosing motherhood over being number one in the world at this point of time. But I’ll answer your question anyway, that’s the question I face all the time as a woman, that all women have to face — the first is marriage and then it’s motherhood. Unfortunately, that’s when we’re settled, and no matter how many Wimbledons we win or number ones in the world we become, we don’t become settled. But eventually it will happen, not right now. And when it does happen I’ll be the first one to tell everybody when I plan to do that.

Rajdeep: I must apologise, I framed that question very badly. I promise you, you’re right, I would never ask this question to a male athlete…

Sania: I’m so glad, you’re the first journalist to apologise to me on national television.

Later in the interaction when asked how she would like to be remembered, Sania simply and yet smartly said,

“(hope my achievements set a precedent that) no girl is asked at the age of 29 as to when she is going to have a child when she’s number one in the world,” before adding, “that’s no settling in.”

Rajdeep soon understood the subtle jibe and once again apologised for the question!

Watch the Video here:

However, this sexist question by the journalist brings up the same question yet again – Why must women have kids to settle down?