Sania Mirza will retire after next month’s Dubai Tennis Championships. Her 2022 plans were delayed due to injury.
Sania Mirza has won six Grand Slam doubles titles and will compete in her final major this month at the Australian Open, where she won in 2016.
In an interview released on the WTA Tour’s website on Friday, Mirza stated, “I was going to stop right after the WTA Finals because we were going to make the WTA Finals, but I tore my tendon in my elbow right before US Open, so I had to pull out of everything. Honestly, the person that I am, I like to do things on my own terms. So I don’t want to be forced out by injury. So I’ve been training,”
Mirza had planned to retire at the end of the 2022 season but missed the US Open with an elbow injury.
Mirza won her hometown Hyderabad WTA singles title in 2005. She achieved world number 27 in 2007.
Mirza partnered with Martina Hingis after a career-threatening wrist injury. “Santina” won 14 titles, including Wimbledon, the US and Australian Open.
Mirza will compete at the Australian Open, which begins on Jan. 16, before retiring in the United Arab Emirates, where she has lived with her husband, former Pakistan cricketer Shoaib Malik.
“I’m 36, and honestly, my body is beaten; that is the main reason for it; I really don’t have the capacity in my mind to emotionally push that much anymore. So I turned pro in 2003. Priorities change, and now my priority is not to push my body to the limit every single day.” Mirza said in a recent interview.
