Lost mixed doubles final in Australia, said- career started here 18 years ago
Tennis star Sania Mirza’s dream of winning the last Grand Slam final was shattered. Sania (36) and Rohan Bopanna (42) pair lost to Brazilian pair of Luisa Stefani and Rafael Matos in the Australian Open mixed doubles final.
After the final match, Sania broke down in tears when she was called for a speech at the Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne. He said – these are tears of happiness. Career started in Melbourne 18 years ago, there can’t be a better place than Melbourne to end it. Thank you all for making me feel at home here.
Will be the last tournament of WTA career
Sania Mirza has already announced her retirement. At the beginning of the year, she had said in an interview to tennis website wtatennis.com that the WTA 1000 event in Dubai from February 19 would be her last tournament. After that she will retire.
Bopanna said- Thank you for being an inspiration in the country and the world
Sania Mirza also thanked fellow player Rohan Bopanna. He said that at the age of 14, his first mixed doubles partner was Bopanna. Both their families and children were also present during the finale. However, Sania’s husband and Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik was not in the final. Bopanna said to Sania – You have done the work of inspiring the people of the country and the world for so many years with your game. Thank you for this.
Brazilian pair beat Sania Bopanna
Luisa and Rafael, who won the mixed doubles, won the Grand Slam for the first time. Sania-Bopanna lost the first set 6-7 in a tiebreak. In the second set too, the Brazilian pair did not give them a chance to come back and won the set 6-2.
Sania-Bopanna had won the French Open mixed doubles title six years back in 2017. In the Australian Open, Mirza became the champion in 2009 with Mahesh Bhupathi. Sania Mirza has won 6 Grand Slams so far.
The pair of Neil-Desiree had abandoned the match in the semi-finals.
Sania-Bopanna had a semi-final clash with Britain’s Neil Skupski and American Desiree Krawczyk, but the pair bowed out in the third set. After this the Indian pair was declared the winner.
Walkover was also found in the quarter final match
The Indian pair of Sania-Bopanna was given a walkover by Vega Hernandez of Spain and Janina Ostapenko of Latvia in their quarter-final encounter. The pair made it to the top-8 after defeating the Uruguayan pair of Ariel Behar and Makoto Ninomiya 6-4 7-6 in the pre-quarterfinal match.
Lose to unseeded pair in Women’s Doubles
Sania Mirza, along with her partner Ana Danilina, suffered an upset in the second round of the women’s doubles. The Indo-Kazakh 8th seed pair went down 4-6, 6-4, 2-6 to the unseeded pair of Belgium’s Alison Van Uitvank and Ukraine’s Anhelina Kalinina. This fight lasted for about 2 hours.
