Sania Mirza's Wimbledon hopes dashed with a semifinal loss in mixed doubles
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Wimbledon : Indian tennis star Sania Mirza's swansong performance at Wimbledon ended with a mixed doubles semi-final loss to defending champions Neal Skupski and Desirae Krawczyk here.
Mirza and Mate Pavic her Croatian partner seeded sixth on Wednesday night and lost 6-4 5-7 4-6 to Skupski of Great Britain and American Krawczyk in two hours and 16 minutes.
The 35-year-old Mirza, who has won six Grand Slam titles including three mixed doubles trophies, is India's most decorated women's tennis player. Her goal was to complete a Career Slam in mixed doubles.
She won mixed doubles titles at the 2009 Australian Open, 2012 French Open with Mahesh Bhupathi and 2014 US Open with Brazilian Bruno Soares.
Multiple Grand Slam winners Mirza and Pavich dominated the first set on the back of strong serves.
Mirza is on her last tour year who were on tour last year, and Pavic looked to seal the match when they led 4-2 in the second set but the duo lost five of the next six games as Skupski and Krawczyk, seeded second, forced the decider, PTI reported.
In the decider, Mirza and Pavic drew first blood as they broke their opponent's serve but were immediately broken back.
In the 12th game, Pavic double-faulted twice with Skupski and Krawczyk converted the match point. This is Mirza's best-mixed doubles performance at the All England Club. Previously, she had reached the quarter-finals in 2011, 2013 and 2015.
Mirza, a six-time Grand Slam winner, had earlier announced that he would hang up her racket at the end of the 2022 season. The 35-year-old Indian, who partnered with Martina Hingis to win the women's doubles title in 2015, has bid adieu to Wimbledon.