Indian tennis player Sania Mirza and her American partner Bethanie Mattek-Sands crashed out of the women’s doubles competition at Wimbledon Grand Slam on Saturday. With this, Sania’s return to Wimbledon in her favourite event ended in disappointment as she failed to progress beyond the second round.
Sani and her partner suffered a straight sets defeat as the Russian pair of Elena Vesnina and Veronika Kudermetova won the match 6-4, 6-3. The match ended in just less than 90 minutes.
Sania is also taking part in the mixed doubles event partnering with compatriot Rohan Bopanna. The duo beat another all-Indian couple, Ramkumar Ramanathan and Ankita Raina, in straight sets 6-2 7-6 in the first round.
Sania’s son Izhaan was also present in the audience to watch his Mom play in the women’s doubles first-round match. Sania had rushed to hug her son after winning the first-round match. She had later shared an adorable photo of Izhaan with a caption that read, “Round 1 ☑️ Smiles ☑️ Spider man cheering us on ☑️ Wimbledon ☑️.”
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This was the first time in the history of an Open era that two mixed doubles teams from the same country had taken part in a Grand Slam match.
Sania has won six Grand Slam in both women’s doubles and mixed doubles competitions in the past. This includes two Australian Open, one French Open, one Wimbledon and two US Open titles.
Sania, who hails from the Indian city of Hyderabad, is married to Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik.