Sania Mirza’s Wimbledon chapter ends with semi-final exit

Indian tennis legend Sania Mirza’s storied history with the world’s oldest Grand Slam ended on Wednesday after she and her Croatian partner Mate Pavic lost in the Wimbledon 2022 mixed doubles semi-finals.

Sania Mirza and Mate Pavic, seeded sixth, went down to the second-seeded British-American pair of Neal Skupski and Desirae Krawczyk, the defending champions, 6-4, 5-7, 4-6.

Sania Mirza and Mate Pavic took the early initiative and broke home favourite Neal Skupski’s serve in the fifth game of the first set. The Indo-Croatian pair then capitalised on the momentum to take a 1-0 lead.

In the second set, Sania Mirza and Mate Pavic, one-half of the reigning men’s doubles Wimbledon champions, once again broke the Neal Skupski serve in the first game for an early advantage. 

But just as Sania Mirza and Mate Pavic looked like they were cruising into the final, Sania Mirza got broken in the eighth game of the second set. Neal Skupski and Desirae Krawczyk made full use of the opening and drew level.

In the deciding set, Desirae Krawczyk was broken for the first time in the match as Sania Mirza and Mate Pavic took a 2-1 lead but the Indo-Croatian pair conceded the advantage in the very next game.

Mate Pavic, serving to save the match in the tenth game, started with a double fault and the defending champions pounced on the opportunity. The Indo-Croatian pair managed to save a match point but then conceded easy points to crash out of the championships.

Mate Pavic and Sania Mirza committed 19 unforced errors against the defending champions during the course of the match, which proved costly.

This was Sania Mirza’s first Wimbledon semi-finals in the mixed doubles. Previously, she had made the mixed doubles quarter-finals in 2011, 2013 and 2015.

With Sania Mirza playing her final season of professional tennis, this was her final match at the Wimbledon - the very tournament which helped her leave her first mark on international tennis almost two decades back.

In 2003, Sania Mirza, then 17, won the Wimbledon girl’s doubles title with Russia’s Alisa Kleybanova, becoming the first Indian female tennis player to win a Grand Slam of any kind.

“This is where it all started for me in 2003. That was the beginning of the big things for me. This is the biggest stage of tennis,” Sania Mirza had said.

Twelve years later, Sania Mirza would go on to win a senior Wimbledon title, clinching the women’s doubles title with Swiss legend Martina Hingis. The 2015 triumph remains Sania Mirza’s only Wimbledon title till date.

"I am going to miss Wimbledon but I think it is time to move on,” an emotional Sania Mirza, mother to a three-year-old son Izhaan, had said after losing in the first round of women’s doubles last week. 

“There are things in life that take priority over playing tennis matches and I am at that stage now."