Leading Indian player Sania Mirza has become engaged to a business scholar from her hometown of Hyderabad but has no plans to retire from competitive tennis, domestic media reported on Friday. The 22-year-old Mirza is a youth icon in a nation starved for sporting success after she became the first Indian to win a WTA tour title and break into the world's top 50 in 2005 but has struggled to live up to early expectations. The pair were unlikely to tie the knot in the near future, however, as her 23-year-old fiance Sohrab Mirza planned to pursue higher studies, reports quoted family members as saying. Sohrab Mirza is the son of Adil Mirza and Noora Begum, the owners of Universal Bakers chain in the city of Hyderabad. The chain has been a popular fast-food site in the city for several years now. According to the Times of India, Sania's father Imran Mirza has rebutted some of the rumors surrounding the engagement, saying “I would like to state that the news appearing in certain sections of the media about the two maternal grandmothers having fixed the liaison is baseless. It has also been wrongly projected that Sania is contemplating early retirement from tennis. These reports are absolutely untrue.” Mirza has been plagued by injuries over the last two seasons but has continued playing despite being frustrated by a series of court petitions attributed mostly to people trying to grab media attention.
