You may not have heard much about Sania Mirza but she has spent almost as much time being threatened with court as playing on one.

Mirza, who won her first-round match against Catalina Castano, is a star in her native India. But as one of the country’s Muslim minority, she has faced fierce criticism for dressing in what some religious leaders deem to be inappropriate clothing.

She has had a fatwa against her and been burned in effigy.

Demonstrations took place after remarks she made about safe sex were misconstrued.

Last December she was charged with trespassing after she filmed an advertising shoot in the grounds of a mosque in Hyderabad.

And in January she was sued when pictured resting her bare feet on a table next to the Indian flag.

Tennis Magazine labelled her ‘Miss Demeanour’ in its latest issue but Mirza cut a demure figure in the interview room yesterday.

She refused to answer one question about how she reconciled her faith with playing a sport where women ‘flaunt themselves’.

Otherwise, she believes all the controversies had only made her stronger. “They have made me grow up a lot more,” she said. “I have come through it and learned to accept that that is how it is.”