Australian Open 2020: Sania retires mid-way into women’s doubles first round clash

Indian tennis star Sania Mirza has been ruled out of the Australian Open due to injury. Sania, who had earlier pulled out of the mixed doubles had to retire mid-way into her women’s doubles first-round match due to a calf injury, at Melbourne on Thursday.

Sania was to team up with compatriot Rohan Bopanna and enter the mixed doubles, but she had pulled out sighting injury concerns, but she had claimed that she will be participating in the women’s doubles event with her Ukrainian partner Nadiia Kichenok.

Sania in a chat with the Times of India had said “Unfortunately, this little injury of mine emerged when I was playing my top game in the Hobart finals. Injury is now at rest compared to earlier, and I am ready to play women’s doubles. However, I regret that I could not pair up with Rohan Bopanna in mixed doubles.”

However, her dream of playing the first Grand Slam of the year along with Nadiia Kichenok, with whom she won the Hobart International doubles title, was smoked as soon she had to quit the women’s doubled match mid-way due to calf injury.

The Indo-Ukranian pair of Sania-Nadia was up against the Chinese team of Xinyun Han and Lin Zhu in the women’s doubled opening round. The Indo-Ukrainian pair was facing a tough challenge from the Chinese pair and were trailing 2-6, 0-1, before the when the Indian said that she will not be able to continue playing.

It is to be noted that Sania Mirza, who is making a comeback to the grand slam after a two-year break since giving birth to her son Izhaan, had injured her leg during the practice session. She did show courage by walking into the match with her legs with heavy strapping and never looked at ease during the 33 minutes the match was played.

Also, representing India in mixed doubles is veteran Leander Paes, who teams up with Latvian Jelena Ostapenko, who won the 2017 French Open. He is pitted against local wild card entrants Storm Sanders and Mark Polman.