Sania Mirza and Madison Keys were defeated 4-6, 0-6 by the powerful Russian duo of Vernokia Kudermetova and Liudmila Samsonova in exactly one hour.
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On Tuesday, Sania Mirza played her final match as a professional tennis player at the WTA Dubai Duty Free Championships, closing out a wonderful chapter and an outstanding career in Indian sport. Sania, one of India’s top tennis players, was knocked out in the first round with her American partner Madison Keys in Dubai on Tuesday. Sania and Keys were defeated 4-6, 0-6 by the powerful Russian duo of Vernokia Kudermetova and Liudmila Samsonova in exactly one hour. Veronika, 25, is rated 11th in singles and 5th in doubles, while Liudmila is placed 13th in doubles. Exactly one month prior, Sania competed in her last Grand Slam and finished as runner-up with fellow countryman Rohan Bopanna at the Australian Open.
In her final tournament of her career, where she won 43 WTA doubles titles and one singles trophy, Sania would have hoped for a dream ending in her second home, but she ran into a powerful Russian partnership and had to leave early. Sania’s nearly two-decade career was not all about success; unjustified issues followed her around the entire time.
She occasionally carried on, unmoved, and accomplished numerous firsts. She occasionally had such financial hardship that she thought about skipping India. It was when she was accused of disrespecting the tricolour during the 2008 Hopman Cup in Australia, and she had to defend her love and loyalty for India. The most insulting remark made about her was probably when she was referred to as Pakistan’s daughter-in-law because of her marriage to Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik. After Telangana selected her to serve as their state ambassador, she did this.
Despite her stunning on-court achievements, all of this. How many Indian tennis players have made the top 30? How many Majors did well? How many people achieved global acclaim in all genres? How many people took home the year-end titles? Just a few men’s tennis players, and only Sania Mirza in women’s tennis. And there isn’t a player in sight who appears capable of matching what Sania has accomplished. The margin is enormous, and the top performers after Sania are progressively deteriorating.
Sania, 36, who turned professional in 2003, retires from tennis competition with six Grand Slam victories, including three women’s doubles titles with Swiss icon Martina Hingis. She and her countryman Mahesh Bhupathi won two of their three mixed doubles matches (2009 Australian Open and 2012 French Open). She and Bruno Soares shared the US Open championship. At the largest platform, the Olympics, success eluded us. She lost the play-off against Bopanna at the 2016 Rio Games, thus missing out on a bronze medal. The breaks were exchanged quickly in the opening set of her final match, which was tied 4-4. After that, Kudermetova and Samsonova broke Sania and Keys again for a 5-4 advantage, putting themselves in a position to serve out the set. They accomplished that pretty easily, just dropping one point in the tenth game. On the opening game of the second set, Sania and her partner were broken, and from that point on, they were bageled.
