Sania Mirza, the most successful female Indian tennis player of all time, has announced that she would be calling it quits at the end of the season.
Now 35, Mirza has decided that her body can no longer stand the weekly rigours on life on tour, and that it is taking her longer to recover after each match. She also has a three-year-old son, Izhaan Mirza Malik, who accompanies her to events. She feels that it is not good for his development.
Mirza made the announcement after she and her Ukrainian partner Nadia Kichenok were beaten in the first round of the women’s doubles at the Australian Open in Melbourne, in straight sets, to the Slovenian pair of Tamara Zidansek and Kaja Juvan.
However, this is not yet goodbye for Mirza. She intends to play full-time for now, although she is not sure yet so she will see out the 20022 season.
It is fitting that she made the announcement in Melbourne, which has been the scene of some of her biggest triumphs and disappointments.
She reached her first Grand Slam final here in 2008 in the mixed doubles. While she lost on that occasion with Mahesh Bhupathi, the pair returned a year later to lift the trophy.
She also lost in the final of the mixed event in 2014, with Horia Tecau of Romania, and in 2017, with Ivan Dodig of Croatia. She also made it to the semi-finals twice.
Meanwhile, in the women’s doubles, she won the event in 2016 with Martina Hingis of Switzerland. It was a successful collaboration, because the pair also won both the Wimbledon and the US Open in 2015.
She also claimed the mixed title at the French Open in 2012 and at the US Open two years later.
And, away from Grand Slams she also won the prestigious WTA finals in successive years, lifting the cup in 2014 with the South Africa Cara Black and with Hingis the following year.
Never quite as adept in singles a doubles, she did nevertheless win one event on the WTA tour, on home soil in Hyderabad in 2005, and was runner-up in three further finals.