India has learnt to accept female athletes but still a long way to go: Sania

Path-breaking tennis ace Sania Mirza takes pride in the fact that many of India's sporting stars, outside cricket, are women even though she believes that it will take a few more generations before being a sportswoman is seen as a natural career choice in the country.

The winner of six Grand Slam titles, spoke on a range of issues including

the role of parents and attitude of coaches towards women players during a webinar organised by the All India Tennis Association and the Sports Authority of India (SAI).

"I take huge pride in the fact that outside cricket, the biggest sports stars are women athletes. If you see magazines, billboards, you find women sports stars. That is a huge step, I know how difficult it is to pursue a sport being a woman," Sania said.

"This is a signal that things have changed but we have miles to go before we reach the point where when a girls picks up boxing gloves, or a badminton racquet or says 'I want to be a wrestler', it's not out of ordinary, it should ..