Tennis star Sania Mirza recently revealed she is finding it difficult to deal with the coronavirus pandemic as her husband Shoaib Malik is in Sialkot, Pakistan while she is residing in Hyderabad, India.
The pandemic-induced lockdown means her family is separated as she and her son Izhaan Mirza Malik are currently away from her husband due to drastic measures taken by countries including travel restrictions and border shutdowns to contain the spread of the virus.
The athlete was travelling non-stop for tournaments since her return to the tennis court in January and arrived back in India from the US just before the lockdown.
Meanwhile, cricketer Shoaib Malik was playing Pakistan Super League matches in Pakistan until March before the semifinals had to be postponed due to the coronavirus threat.
In a conversation with The Indian Express on Facebook Live, Mirza said “So he [Shoaib Malik] got stuck in Pakistan, I got stuck here. That was very difficult to deal with because we have a small child. We don’t know when Izhaan will be able to see his father again. It’s as basic as that.”
“We are both pretty positive and practical people. He has a mother who is over 65 and by herself, so he needs to be there. So in the end, it worked out best that he was there with her. We hope we are healthy and come out of this on the right side of it,” she added.
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Malik may travel with Pakistan cricket team for England series in June. His wife said she will “definitely be worried because he will be going to the UK, which is highly hit right now” but she feels it will be relatively easier to have control in a team sport like cricket than in tennis.
For Sania at the moment, her priority is not sports but survival and reuniting with her family.
“(But) I am really looking forward to being back as a family again and being at the same place. It’s really not been easy staying away from my husband and for Izhaan to stay away from his father,” she said.
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Sania added “No amount of virtual video calls can do justice to actually meeting in person. I also look forward to a normal world where hugging and shaking hands become normal again, where we don’t think that we might die if we hug someone we love or kill them, you know.”
