Sania Mirza, for long the face of Indian women's tennis will end her celebrated career in the sports at the Dubai Tennis Championships 2023 in February.
"Honestly, I like to do things on my own terms. So I don't want to be forced out by injury,” Sania Mirza, who pulled out of the US Open 2022, told wtatennis in an interview.
Sania Mirza made her senior debut in 2001 and has gone on to prove herself as among India’s most successful tennis players, male or female, of all time. She has won six Grand Slam titles in her career - three in women’s doubles and three in mixed doubles. her last WTA title was at the Ostrava Open in the Czech Republic in 2021.
“I really don’t have the, capacity in my mind to emotionally push that much anymore,” Sania Mirza told Curly Tales Middle East in an interview recently. “Priorities change, and now my priority is not to push my body to the limit every single day.”
Sania is pencilled to partner Anna Danilina of Kazakhstan in women’s doubles at the upcoming Australian Open, which will be her last Grand Slam. The Indian tennis legend won the Australian Open doubles title with Martina Hingis in 2016. She also clinched the Australian Open mixed doubles title with Mahesh Bhupathi in 2009.
India's best ever women’s tennis player was the world No. 1 doubles player in the WTA Rankings from April 2015 until January 2017. The period saw her win three Grand Slam titles in a row.
Sania took a break from professional tennis after the 2017 season and gave birth to her son Izhaan in October 2018. She made a winning return to the court in 2020 at Hobart and claimed her 42nd WTA doubles title.
In singles, Sania’s only WTA title was in her home town Hyderabad in 2005. She reached her career-best singles rank of world No. 27 in 2007 but gave up playing singles after undergoing multiple surgeries.
Sania also holds the distinction of competing at four different Olympic Games. At the Asian Games, she has won eight medals (two Gold, three Silver, and three Bronze). She competed at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi and won a Silver in singles and a Bronze in women’s doubles.
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