Sania Mirza is at match point

A solitaire diamond ring costing little over a million rupees completed the engagement of ace tennis star Sania Mirza with Mohammed Shorab Mirza, son of city based businessman on Friday. It was an intensely private affair with the Mirza family restricting the invitation to only relatives from both sides and few family friends.

To use a tennis analogy, the fans were caught in the net. The Taj Krishna hotel turned into a fortress when Indian tennis’s poster girl Sania Mirza, 22 got engaged to Mohammed Sohrab Mirza, 23, on Friday.

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Giving scores of journalists and TV crews the slip, Sania entered the hotel through the service entrance.

The excitement was palpable outside the Mirzas’ upmarket Jubilee Hills residence. A little after 4 pm., Sania, clad in
jeans and a tee, was driven out in a gleaming new green BMW bearing the lucky number 786.

For the uninitiated, 786 is the numerical order of the first letters of each verse in the Muslim epithet Bismillahir Rahmani Rahim (God most gracious most merciful).

Sources said Sania visited a dargah en route the engagement venue — the hotel belonging to the GVK Group that has been sponsoring the tennis champ since her childhood.

Although the engagement was a strictly off-bounds for the media, Hindustan Times got a sneak peek into the select gathering. Spotted at the do was Union Minister of State for Human Resource Development D. Purandeswari, and of course, Sania’s mixed doubles partner and fellow Hyderabadi Mahesh Bhupathi.

The match point? Sohrab, dapper in Armani, gifting Sania a diamond solitaire ring reportedly worth Rs 10 lakh.