message confirming her retirement after the Dubai Open, scheduled to be
played in February.The 36-year-old Indian legend will make her last Grand Slam appearance in
Australian Open and will retire after the Dubai tournament. Sania had
initially intended to hang up her racquet at the end of last season, but an
elbow injury had ruled her out of the US Open and forced her to stop
playing in 2022 as early as August. on her official Twitter account, Sania
recalled her early days in tennis and her memories of playing in Grand Slam
tournaments.
“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 recalled.
Sania further added with a lot of hope despite all the odds stacked
against her, dared to dream of playing in a Grand Slam some day and of
representing our country with honour at the highest level in sport.
Looking back at career, she had not only did I get to play well over
half a century of Grand Slam tournaments but I was fortunate enough to win
a bunch of them. “To win medals for my country has been my biggest honour
and I feel truly humbled to have been able to stand up on the podium.
knowing that the tri color had been raised high to be seen and respected by
millions all over the world all because of something that I was privileged
enough to achieve have tears in my eyes and goosebumps even as I type
this”, she said.
