Mirza performed her final Grand Slam match the place she and Bopanna misplaced the Australian Open combined doubles ultimate to Brazilian pair Stefani and Matos.
Indian tennis star Sania Mirza’s final Grand Slam match has ended with a loss within the Australian Open combined doubles ultimate.
The 36-year-old Mirza, India’s best girls’s participant, returned to Melbourne Park for one final hurrah and made all of it the best way to the decider on Friday.
Nonetheless, she and her 42-year-old doubles accomplice Rohan Bopanna have been unable to recover from the road, shedding 7-6 (7/2), 6-2 to Brazilian pair Luisa Stefani and Rafael Matos.
— Sania Mirza (@MirzaSania) January 27, 2023
Mirza was in tears throughout the post-match presentation ceremony.
“Disclaimer, if I cry it’s glad tears,” Mirza mentioned. “I don’t wish to take away the second from Matos-Stefani who’ve deserved this.”
Mirza first appeared at a Grand Slam match 18 years in the past in Melbourne, when she was overwhelmed by eventual 2005 champion Serena Williams in a third-round match.
“I’ve had the privilege to return again right here many times, and win some tournaments and play some nice finals.
“Rohan was my first-ever mixed-doubles accomplice at [age] 14 and we received the nationals,” mentioned Mirza, a six-time Grand Slam champion, three in girls’s doubles and three in combined.
“It was a very long time in the past, 22 years in the past, and I couldn’t consider a greater particular person – he’s certainly one of my greatest mates and greatest companions – to complete my profession right here and to play the ultimate.”
🔹6 profession Grand Slam titles
🔹2014 US Open combined doubles champion
🔹2015 US Open girls’s doubles championCongratulations on a exceptional Grand Slam profession, @MirzaSania! pic.twitter.com/rusGlEHshR
— US Open Tennis (@usopen) January 27, 2023
Mirza, who’s married to former Pakistan cricket captain Shoaib Malik and has a younger son Izhaan with him, mentioned it was unimaginable to play in entrance of him in a serious ultimate.
Mirza was the primary Indian to win a WTA singles title in 2005 in her hometown Hyderabad. She reached the fourth spherical of the US Open the identical 12 months and by 2007 was among the many girls’s prime 30.
A wrist harm nonetheless pressured her to focus on doubles, forging a partnership with Swiss nice Martina Hingis which produced three Grand Slam titles.
She is because of retire from all tennis after a match subsequent month in Dubai, the place she has lived for greater than 10 years and just lately launched a tennis academy.
