Shoaib, Sania decide surname of their first child

GOA: Tennis star Sania Mirza and her cricketer husband Shoaib Malik have decided that ‘Mirza Malik’ would be the surname of their first child.

Sania Mirza made this disclosure at a panel discussion on ‘Gender Bias’ in Goa. She also revealed that her husband actually “wants a daughter”.

“Today I will tell you a secret. My husband and I have spoken about it and we have decided that whenever we have a child, the child will have Mirza Malik as the surname and not just Malik. So that’s where we stand as a family, including my husband. He actually wants a daughter,” she said.

The tennis star also spoke about how she experienced gender bias at the hands of her extended family who would advise her parents to have a son so that their family can “go ahead”. She spoke about the times she fought with her relatives over this and that for her family it was never about “wanting a son to carry the family name forward”.

Ms Mirza, who has a younger sister, said, “We have never wished that we had a brother.”

Emphasizing that daughters can also take a family name forward, she said, “My name is still Sania Mirza and it will remain that way. The family name is going to go forward,” she said.

Sania Mirza underlined that pay disparity between men and women players existed in sports and a way out of it was to change the mindsets of people towards women players.