India duo of Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna reached the semifinals of the mixed doubles competition of the Australian Open 2023. They entered the final four round after receiving a walkover in their quarterfinals. Mirza and Bopanna were scheduled to play against Latvian and Spanish pair of Jelena Ostapenko and David Vega Hernandez but secured an automated place in the semis after they received a walkover.
In their pre-quarterfinal game against Uruguay's Ariel Behar and Japan's Makato Ninomiya, the Indian pair had registered a win by 6-4, 7-6 (11-9).
It is worth highlighting that this is Sania's last Grand Slam after she confirmed that she would retire after playing in the Dubai Tennis Championships 2023 in February. With the Indian tennis ace now one match away from the final, she would definitely want to add another Grand Slam win to her credit.
In the women's doubles event though, the 36-year-old has already been knocked out of the competition. Mirza and her Kazakh partner Anna Danilina, who were seeded eighth, faced a defeat to Alison Van Uytvanck of Belgium and Anhelina Kalinina of Ukraine in three sets.
However even in that game, Sania had not gone down without a fight. Sania and her partner were a set down and trailing 0-3 from where they came to win the second set and force the match into a decider. However, they could not carry the form into the final set where they lost 2-6, subsequently losing the match 4-6, 6-4, 2-6.
I have so many emotions flashing through me with pride and gratitude: Sania before her final Grand Slam
“Thirty (yes, 30!) years ago a 6 year old girl from Nasr School in Hyderabad, walked on to a tennis court at Nizam Club with her young mom and fought the coach to let her learn how to play tennis as he thought that she was too little :). The fight for our dreams began at 6," Sania wrote in an emotional social media post before the Australian Open.
"As I get ready to play my last Australian Open 18 years after I played my first, and then the Dubai Open in Feb, I have so many emotions flashing through me with pride and gratitude, perhaps, being the foremost I take pride in everything I have been able to achieve over the last 20 years of my professional career," she had added in a post which was captioned "Life Update."