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A glorious chapter and an illustrious career came to an end in Indian sport on Tuesday as Sania Mirza played her last match as a professional tennis player at the WTA Dubai Duty Free Championships. Sania, who is one of the greatest tennis players ever to emerge from India,\u00a0closed her glorious career with a first round defeat, losing the contest in straight sets with American partner Madison Keys in Dubai Tuesday. Sania and Keys lost 4-6, 0-6 to the formidable Russian pair of Vernokia Kudermetova and Liudmila Samsonova in exactly one hour. The 25-year-old Veronika is ranked 11th in singles and number five in the doubles while Liudmila is world number 13 in doubles.<\/p>\n
Just a month back Sania played her last Grand Slam and ended with a runner-up finish at the Australian Open along with compatriot Rohan Bopanna.<\/p>\n
Now settled in Dubai, Sania would have hoped for a dream closing at her second home but she bumped into a strong Russian pairing that cut short her stay in the final tournament of her career in which she won 43 WTA doubles titles and one singles trophy.<\/p>\n
Success was not the only highlight of her almost two-decade long career as unwarranted controversies chased Sania throughout.<\/p>\n
Sometimes she remained unfazed and kept going, achieving many a firsts. Sometimes she broke to the extent that she considered not playing in India.<\/p>\n
It was when she had to prove her love and loyality for India after being accused of disrespecting the tri-colour during the 2008 Hopman Cup in Australia.<\/p>\n
Probably the worst jibe thrown at her was when she was called daughter-in-law of Pakistan due to her wedding with Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik. This was after Telangana chose her to be their state ambassador.<\/p>\n
All this, despite her inspiring on-court success.<\/p>\n
After all, how many from India became a top-30 tennis players? How many excelled at Majors? How many became world number one across formats? How many won the year-end championships? In men’s tennis, just a handful and in women’s tennis, it’s only Sania.<\/p>\n
And no player is in sight who looks like even getting near to what Sania has achieved. The gap is huge and the best after Sania are also gradually fading.<\/p>\n
The 36-year-old Sania, who turned Pro in 2003, walks out of competitive tennis with six Grand Slam titles, including three women’s doubles with Swiss legend Martina Hingis.<\/p>\n
She won two of her three mixed doubles with compatriot Mahesh Bhupathi (2009 Australian Open and 2012 French Open). She won the US Open trophy with Bruno Soares.<\/p>\n
However success eluded at the biggest stage: Olympics. She was close to winning a bronze at the 2016 Rio Games but lost the play-off with Bopanna.<\/p>\n
In the final match of her career, the breaks were traded at swift pace in the opening set which was locked at 4-4. From there, Kudermetova and Samsonova broke the pair of Sania and Keys one more time for a 5-4 lead, placing themselves in a position from where they could serve out the set.<\/p>\n
They did that quite comfortably, losing one point in the 10th game.<\/p>\n
Sania and her partner were broken in the very first game of the second set and it was one way traffic after that as they were bageled.<\/p>\n
.With PTI inputs<\/p>\n