As our columnist points out, pressure is always part of international sport and for the sake of every little girl who hopes to grow up to be Sania Mirza, she shouldn’t give in so easily. But it’s understandable if she’s tired of apologising, retracting and qualifying everything, and just wants to concentrate on her tennis alone. Some time back, she could not play with Shahar Pe’er of Israel, for fear of a backlash back home. And with this turn of events, she has less to lose than her country.