Updated on: Nov 20, 2025 09:55 am IST
Speaking to Karan Johar, Sania Mirza recently opened up on being a single parent to her son Izhaan, and called it a ‘daunting’ task.
Sania Mirza’s marriage to Shoaib Malik was well-documented in India. The pair were married in 2010 in a traditional Hyderabadi Muslim wedding ceremony in Hyderabad. The couple announced their first pregnancy on social media on April 23, 2018. Their son’s name is Izhaan Mirza Malik. Then in 2024, the former tennis player’s family revealed that the couple had divorced some months earlier.
Sania Mirza poses for a photo with her son Izhaan.(Photo: Instagram)
Speaking to Karan Johar, she recently opened up on being a single parent to her son Izhaan, and called it a ‘daunting’ task.
“For me, single parenting is hard, and also because we are working and we do so many different things,” she said.
Initially, Karan said, “Have you seen the flipside? It is actually liberating because you’re not at crossroads with anybody else.”
Karan also acknowledged that Sania’s situation is ‘more daunting’ than his own. He said, “Your’s is cross border as well. You have a situation which is even more daunting and overwhelming.”
Mirza also revealed that it is ‘challenging’ to leave her son in Dubai whenever she has to travel to India for work. “I find it challenging to leave him because I live in Dubai and I travel to India. That’s the biggest challenge for me to stay away for a period of one week. That for me, is the hardest part, anything else I’m fine with,” she said.
Opening up on the loneliness in being a single parent, she revealed, “Amount of times that I have skipped dinner because I didn’t want to eat alone. I think it helped me lose weight. I don’t feel like eating dinner. I would rather just watch something and sleep.”
Sania is a former doubles world No. 1, and she won six major titles during her career (three in women’s doubles and three in mixed doubles. From 2003 until her retirement from singles in 2013, she was ranked by the WTA as India’s No. 1 in singles.
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