Australian Open 2023 tennis: Sania Mirza-Rohan Bopanna in mixed doubles final

Indian tennis players Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna made the final of the Australian Open 2023 mixed doubles event on Wednesday after beating USA’s Desirae Krawczyk and Britain’s Neal Skupski in the semi-finals.

Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna upset Desirae Krawczyk and Neal Skupski, the third seeds and two-time Wimbledon champions, 7(7)-6(5), 6(5)-7(7), 10-6.

Playing at the Margaret Court Arena at Melbourne Park, the two teams went toe-to-toe in the first set and neither pair dropped a single serve. Mirza and Bopanna finally emerged with the lead after edging out their opponents 7-5 in the tie-breaker.

In the second set, the Indian pair took an early advantage as they combined well to break Skupski’s serve in the very first game. The British-American pair levelled up after breaking Bopanna’s and Sania’s serves in the sixth and eighth games, respectively.

Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna, who made the Rio 2016 semi-finals together, however, used their experience well to ensure three more break points of their own.

With Sania serving for the match in the 12th game, the Indian pair had a match point opportunity but squandered it as Krawczyk and Skupski fought back to force a tie break for the second set as well.

Unlike the first, it was Krawczyk and Skupski who came out on top this time around to take the match into a super tie-breaker.

The Indian pair recovered brilliantly from the disappointing end of the second set to win the super tie-breaker 10-6.

In the final, Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna will face the all-Brazilian pair of Luisa Stefani and Rafael Matos.

This will be the first time in five years that a Grand Slam final will have Indian representation. Rohan Bopanna had made the Australian Open mixed doubles final with Hungary’s Timea Babos in 2018 but lost.

Sania Mirza’s last final appearance at a Grand Slam event was at the 2017 Australian Open, where she and her mixed doubles partner, Croatia’s Ivan Dodig, lost the title to Colombia’s Abigail Spears and Juan Sebastian Cabal.

Earlier, Sania and Bopanna had defeated Japan’s Makoto Ninomiya and Uruguay’s Ariel Behar in the second round after accounting for Australia’s Jaimee Fourlis and Luke Saville in their opener. In the quarter-finals, they got a walkover from Latvia’s Jelena Ostapenko and Spain’s David Vega Hernandez.

The upcoming final also sets up the perfect Grand Slam farewell for Sania Mirza, who is set to retire after the Dubai WTA event next month and is playing her final Slam.