By DPA
London : India's Sania Mirza won't bow to peer pressure over her choice of an Israeli doubles partner at Wimbledon.
Mirza, a Muslim says she intends to play alongside Shahar Peer, a previous partnership, which stirred up controversy in India in 2005 when the culturally odd couple played in Tokyo and Bangkok before splitting up in the wake of hysterical rhetoric.
The Indian had previously drawn fire for wearing the usual short tennis skirt and living a Western lifestyle.
"We're just here to play tennis and we're here to perform and be the best we can be," said the Indian number one woman tennis player. "We've grown up together. We're great friends. So we said, why not?"
Mirza has teamed with a variety of partners over the spring and considers Peer just another good player.
"Me and Shahar are playing just like the way I played with anyone else the last six weeks. It doesn't make any statement."
On the tennis front, the pair stacks up nicely.
"She's someone who suits each other's game. I have a big forehand. She has a big backhand. We've done well in the past. We really don't care whether she's from Israel or I'm from Pakistan.
"At the end of the day it matters whether we win a match or not."
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Wayne rolls back the years – and maybe his retirement
Unexpected Wimbledon success may convince Australian Wayne Arthurs to postpone his pending retirement.
The old stager has reached the third round at the age of 36 and is due for a match against 35-year-old Swede Jonas Bjorkman.
Originally, Arthurs, a father of one with a new home in Melbourne's trendy Toorak riverside suburb, had expected to give up the game after his final Wimbledon appearance.
But with his continued success, he figures: why give up on a good thing.
Should he beat Bjorkman and then win another match, it would mean the quarterfinals. That kind of a move would provide a jet-propelled rankings boost from his current 195 to around the Top 100 once again.
"I've been thinking about that a little bit. It's possible, yes," he said of the potential change of plan. "At my present ranking if I get to the quarter-finals I'm straight back in the top 100.
"That would probably be the only determining factor."
But the veteran with one career singles title said he is not about to go through the season grind with a standing outside the 100 mark.
"That's the main reason, one of the reasons why I've retired. It's hard to go around a full circle, and that's where I'm at the moment."