It was a heartbreaking moment but also a page-turner was seen at the Dubai Tennis Championships 2023. Sania Mirza bows out of the competition in the first round. High hopes were there for it was her farewell tournament, the last hurrah so to speak before retiring from the sport permanently.
In the doubles match, Indian tennis player Mirza with partner American Madison Keys, lost 6-4, 6-0 to Ver Veronika Kudermetova and Liudmila Samsonova in Tuesday’s event held at the Dubai Duty-Free Tennis Stadium.
Mirza already let the public know early on that she will be retiring after the WTA 1000 tournament in Dubai.
“I guess (the retirement) is sinking in a little bit,” Sania Mirza said after the match. “I am sure I will have a cry tomorrow morning. But the good part about taking a decision on your own terms is that you are very happy with what you are doing. It is very important to believe. I feel very grateful and satisfied with that.”
“I stopped because I wanted to stop… it’s time for different things. My priorities are different now. It’s been a long career,” added Sania, who made her professional tennis debut on the senior circuit in 2001. “I am just looking forward to the next stage of my life.”
The match saw a tight battle between the two teams as they were tied 3-3 in the first set. The first blood was drawn by the Kudermetova-Samsonova duo when they broke Mirza’s serve in the seventh game. The Indo-American pair fought back with a break of their own in the eighth.
Despite being ranked as No. 23 in the world in singles tennis, Keys was unable to hold onto a solid service in the ninth game. The Kudermetova-Samsonova pair took advantage of this and brazenly held onto theirs in the 10th, taking a 1-0 lead.
The Mirza-Keys duo wasn’t able to recover from this loss and the team of Veronika Kudermetova and Liudmila Samsonova dominated the game taking the second set completely. It took only just over an hour for the match to wrap up.
Sania Mirza will still leave a formidable legacy as a great tennis player despite the disappointing manner her farewell tournament concluded. Mirza will retire as India’s best-ever women’s tennis player in history. She was a six-time Grand Slam winner, and won 44 WTA titles in her career, with only one coming in singles. The Ostrava Open 2021 saw her last doubles triumph in the Czech Republic with her doubles match partner China’s Zhang Shuai.
It was a bitter end but this does not make any dent in what Sania Mirza was able to accomplish as a great tennis player. Hopefully, we’ll still see her presence in special tennis events or even in another role in the field of tennis. Would you like us to feature players who have retired and how they are doing nowadays? Just let us know in the comment section below. We’ll attend to your suggestions soonest to have the topics you would love to know more about posted on our pages. Cheers!
