Chak De Sania, urges Shah Rukh

Sania Mirza has seemingly worked her way around defensive players this season. Patty Schnyder, for one, saw her game fall apart at Stanford last month...

Sania Mirza has seemingly worked her way around defensive players this season. Patty Schnyder, for one, saw her game fall apart at Stanford last month; the Swiss world No 13’s conqueror Sania Mirza avenging a loss at Cincinnati of a year ago. For trickier questions of the Chakvedatze type, she can turn to the Chak De man Shah Rukh Khan.

There’s little he can do about her serve – work in progress – but for verbal vollies, SRK offered a ready demo to India’s young tennis firebrand, guiding her through a string of rallies with the press pack assembled here.

If the 20-year-old thinks the media picks on her – her game, her attire, her serve, her return – SRK has it worse.

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Entertainment scribes vocally strip the shirt off the six-pack-abs hero, just the way their sports counterparts normally rip apart Mirza’s unforced errors. SRK adopted a tongue-in-dimpled cheek laugh-raiser. “Years go by and people tell you, you are not doing anything new, so this new fit look. But I still dance around and wear good clothes, so I’m called King Khan, and I love it,” he says in one quick breath, before answering, “Yeah, they ask me if I’ll chuck it for yet another scene, and I tell them I’m still talented enough to do it with a shirt on.”

But tennis? “It’s one sport I could never get a hang of. These players make it look so easy. But I just couldn’t hold the racket and hit with one hand, even two,” he shrugged at a promo event for the Sunfeast Open.

Both icons have had their share of hits; though misses aren’t uncommon in this unforgiving world. Except, Mirza, young and burdened by expectations of the burgeoning billion, lets it show. “There’s belief, but more than that people expect a lot from me. It’s important for them to know that every time we step on the court, we give our 100 per cent,” she was left almost pleading.

Khan, jabbed into admitting that he regretted not doing Lagaan, charmed his way through another smart-one. “Yeah, Aamir and Ashutosh did it well – both carried it off much more intelligently than I would have,” he said graciously. “But no regrets, I’ve done Chak De now.”

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A lesson in mastering the backhands that Mirza could learn.

India didn’t win the Asia Cup in Chennai because Kabir Khan poured his heart out during the film’s seven-minute sermon and King Khan, for once played it straight, saying: “Its not like hockey is doing well because of the film. In fact, sport is so good that it gives us an opportunity to make nice films. I don’t want to take the credit away from the real athletes, or the talented girls from Chak De even.”

She would have shrugged at the n+1th instance of being asked about her foray into the glam-world. He spared her the trouble of answering. “I’m sure she’ll do well in films, but then who’ll take care of our tennis? We should let her just be there.”