Sania Mirza and Shoaib Malik Acquire Golden Visas

Sania Mirza is credited for putting Indian women’s tennis on the global map!

Indian tennis icon Sania Mirza and her husband, Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik, have been granted the 10-year UAE Golden Visa.

Sania Mirza the female tennis icon from India and her Pakistani cricket player Shoaib Malik have been granted the 10-year UAE Golden Visa. Sania is credited for single-handedly popularizing Indian women’s tennis globally. She achieved top level singles ranking of number 27, a huge feat for her country.

In 2005, at the US Open, Sania in her best Grand Slam singles performance lost to the top seed at that time Maria Sharapova in the fourth round. She however managed to beat top tennis players in the tournament including Grand Slam winners like Marion Bartoli, Martina Hingis, Svetlana Kuznetsova and Victoria Azarenka.

She would later suffer a wrist injury that led to her quitting singles but she went on to become a leading doubles player in the world. She has managed to win six Grand Slam titles, three in the women’s doubles and three in the mixed doubles. She is now preparing for her fourth Olympics appearance in Tokyo, Japan.

She is married to Malik, a former Pakistani cricket captain who has played thirty five tests, two eighty seven one-day internationals and one hundred and sixteen T20 internationals. Now, they are the latest foreign athletes in the UAE to have been granted the UAE’s Golden Visa.

UAE introduced a new system for people looking for long-term residency in the nation in 2019. Known as Golden Visas, they are issued either for 5 or 10 years and are subject to automatic renewal.