According to Amy Woodyatt of CNN on Wednesday, women’s doubles specialist Sania Mirza of Hyderabad, India played her final match of her career on Tuesday after announcing her retirement on January 7. After playing on the WTA Tour since 2003. Mirza retired at the age of 36. She was also the number one player in the world in women’s doubles on three separate occasions from 2015 to 2017. On Tuesday, Mirza and American Madison Keys lost to Veronika Kudermetova and Liudmila Samsanova of Russia 6-4, 6-0 in the first round of the Dubai Tennis Championship.
Mirza won three grand slam titles in women’s doubles and three grand slam titles in mixed doubles. Her women’s doubles titles came at Wimbledon and the United States Open in 2015 as well as the Australian Open in 2016. Mirza’s mixed doubles titles came at the Australian Open in 2009, the French Open in 2012, and the United States Open in 2014.
In women’s doubles, Mirza won three grand slam titles with five-time grand slam singles champion Martina Hingis of Switzerland. Mirza and Hingis defeated Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina of Russia 5-7, 7-6, 7-5 in the 2015 Wimbledon final, and then Australia’s Casey Dellacqua and Kazakhstan’s Yaroslava Shvedova in the 2015 United States Open final. At the 2016 Australian Open final, Mirza and Hingis beat Andrea Hlavackova and Lucie Hradecka of Czechia 7-6, 6-3.
In mixed doubles, Mirza won the 2009 Australian Open with fellow Indian Mahesh Bhupathi. They beat France’s Nathalie Dechy and Israel’s Andy Ram 6-3, 6-1 in the final. At the 2012 French Open final, Mirza teamed up with Bhupathi again to beat Klaudia Jans-Ignacik of Poland and Santiago Gonzalez of Mexico 7-6, 6-1. At the 2014 United States Open final, Mirza teamed up with Brazil’s Bruno Soares to beat Abigail Spears of the United States and Mexico’s Santiago Gonzalez 6-1, 2-6, [11-9]. Soares made tennis headlines back in 2020 when he agreed with Nick Kyrgios’s criticism of Novak Djokovic for hosting controversial exhibition tournaments in Croatia and Serbia, when coronavirus was at its peak.
