Monday, March 7 2005 18:04 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: Teenage tennis sensation Sania Mirza today (March 7, 2005) urged corporates to take initiatives and sponsor talented sportspersons in order to ensure that more athletes could come to the forefront.

"The right kind of support and training is essential and it is only when corporates come forward that we will see more tennis players, more cricket players and more Rathores in the making," she said while speaking on the eve of women's day at a conference in Mumbai today.

"I have just been plain lucky," she said while tackling a question on the support she received from the corporate sector in the nascent phase of the 18-year-old's career.

Hyderabad-based Sania created history by becoming the first Indian woman tennis player to reach the third round of a Grand Slam event during the Australian open earlier this year before adding another footnote by winning the WTA Hyderabad Open.

"I was lucky that I was sponsored at the age of 13 when I was a non-entity. Today, there are more corporates coming forward to sponsor not necessarily because they are interested in the sport but more for mileage they would earn out of it," Sania said.

Agreeing to a participants' view point that way back in 1970s corporate sponsorship was not heard of nor were women athletes taken seriously, she said, "Now times have changed. People are looking beyond cricket.

Sport now does not only mean cricket but we need to have some patience before all sports get the desired support and sponsorship", Sania, who reached the quarter-final of the Dubai Open tournament last week, said.