Sania Mirza, a tennis legend from India, announced her retirement in a moving statement on social media on January 13. The 36-year-old announced that the upcoming Australia Open would be her last Grand Slam event and the Dubai Open would be her last competition.
In the social media post, the tennis icon described how winning medals for India and witnessing the tricolor fly high had been the biggest honor in her career. Sania Explained how her journey in tennis began and how it is now ending with some of the best memories as he termed the Australian Open as the perfect stage to play her Grand Slam.
In the middle of 2007, Sania rose to a career-high position of 27th in the WTA Singles Rankings, earning the highest tennis rating an Indian has ever received in the singles division. In April 2015, Sania Mirza, the first Indian woman to ever hold the No. 1 position in doubles history, rose to the top of the WTA Doubles Rankings. On the ATP stage, the doubles rankings have only been won by Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi. Even more impressively, the Indian star was able to maintain the first spot for 21 months before dropping in January 2017.
Sania Mirza’s extensive list of achievements includes six Grand Slam
Sania Mirza’s accomplishments in Indian tennis are unmatched, from winning every Grand Slam to competing in four Olympics. Sania Mirza’s trophy cabinet is adorned with four National Awards and six Grand Slam winners’ medals, which are frequently regarded as the gold standard of a top tennis player’s accomplishments on the professional circuit.
Her first victory came in 2009 when she teamed up with Mahesh Bhupathi to win the Australian Open mixed doubles title. Three years later, the pair would team up once more to represent India, this time on the revered clay of Roland Garros. Sania Mirza and Mahesh Bhupathi, who entered the 2012 French Open as the seventh seed, breezed through the competition to win their second Grand Slam, defeating the Polish-Mexican team of Klaudia Jans-Ignacik and Santiago Gonzalez 7-6, 6-1, in the title match.
In 2014, she teamed up with Brazilian player Bruno Soares to win the US Open, earning her third mixed doubles championship at the Slams. The top-seeded team played up to their reputation by defeating Abigail Spears of the USA and Santiago Gonzalez of Mexico in a tiebreaker of the championship match.
In 2015, Sania Mirza and legendary Swiss player Martina Hingis won three straight Grand Slam doubles titles. The pair, known as Santina by fans, won their first Grand Slam match at Wimbledon in 2015. Without dropping a set, the pair cruised to the championship match against Sania Mirza’s previous partner, the Russian team of Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina. The pair kept up their impressive success over the following several months, winning the US Open 2015 crown and the 2016 Australia Open, achieving a hat-trick of Grand Slams.
In addition to one single championship in singles, Mirza has won a total of 43 titles in doubles, including three in mixed doubles.
- 2015 Wimbledon (Women’s Doubles)
- 2015 US Open (Women’s Doubles)
- 2016 Australian Open (Women’s Doubles)
- 2009 AO (Women’s Doubles)
- 2012 French Open (Women’s Doubles)
- 2014 US Open (Women’s Doubles)
Sania Mirza to partner with Rohan Bopanna for her last Grand Slam
The legendary Indian duo of Rohan Bopanna and Sania Mirza will join hands for the mixed doubles event in the upcoming Australian Open 2023, which is scheduled to start on January 20. Notably, the pair has significant experience playing together in the past. Together, they competed at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, where their journey fell just one place short of a medal.
They defeated Heather Watson and Andy Murray of the UK and Samantha Stosur and John William Peers of Australia in straight sets to advance to the semi-finals. However, they suffered back-to-back losses to Venus Williams and Rajeev Ram of the USA in the semi-final and Lucie Hradecka and Radek Stepanek of the Czech Republic in the bronze medal playoff, which forced them to finish in fourth place.
The pair last competed as a team at Wimbledon in 2021, where they advanced to the third round before falling to Andreja Klepac and Jean-Julien Roger, the 14th-seeded duo. The renowned duo was set to team up at the 2022 US Open, but Mirza’s injury derailed their plans.