India's star tennis player Sania Mirza went down fighting in her last dance at women's doubles Grand Slam on Sunday (January 22). Mirza and women's doubles Kazakh partner Anna Danilina were handed a 4-6 6-4 2-6 defeat at the hands of Belgium's Alison Van Uytvanck and Ukraine's Anhelina Kalinina in the women's doubles clash in Australian Open which lasted for two hours.
Also, Indian men's doubles pair of N Sriram Balaji and Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan's Australian Open campaign came to a screeching halt as they succumbed to the French duo of Jeremy Chardy and Fabrice Martin in the second round. Balaji and Nedunchezhiyan lost in straight sets with a 4-6 4-6 scoreline, which also ended India's challenge in the men's doubles event.
After perishing in the first set, the pair of Mirza and Danilina launched a fightback in the second set which they won after trailing 0-3. They made a comeback and won three games in a row and then followed it up with a crucial break in the seventh game. The match was sent to the decider where it was anybody's game, but the Indo-Kazakh's duo couldn't keep up the momentum to in the third set and ran out of steam to go down to Kalinina and Van Van Uytvanck.
Mirza is, however, still alive in the mixed doubles draw with veteran Rohan Bopanna. The duo had dispatched locals Jaimee Fourlis and Luke Saville 7-5 6-3 in their opening round on Saturday. A six-time Grand Slam champion (three in women's doubles and mixed doubles each), the 36-year-old Mirza had announced that the Australian Open would be her last Grand Slam and she would be retiring after the WTA 1000 Dubai Tennis Championships, slated from February 19.
