Sania Mirza

The 36-year old Mirza initially intended to hang up her racquet at the end of last season, but an elbow injury ruled her out of the US Open and forced her to end 2022 as early as August. A six-time major champion -- three in doubles and three in mixed doubles -- Mirza has signed up to compete in this month's Australian Open alongside Kazakhstan's Anna Danilina.

Sania Mirza, the winner of six doubles Grand Slams titles -- three in women's doubles and an equal number in mixed --has recently been in the news, which suggests the celebrity couple are thinking about splitting.

As per multiple media reports, all is not well between Sania and Shoaib for quite some time now and they are heading toward divorce. The reports also claim Ayesha Oman is the reason for the breakdown of Shoaib and Sania's marriage. However, to date, both Sania and Shoaib, who have been married for 12 years and have a son, have maintained a stoic silence about their personal lives.

Sania Mirza picked up the injury while competing at the Canadian Open earlier this month. She played at last week's Cincinnati Open before reaching the semifinals of the women's doubles in Toronto with partner Madison Keys.

Sania and Pavic, one-half of the Tokyo 2020 men's doubles champions, were set to face Ivan Dodig and Latisha Chan in the pre-quarters. They will now take on either the Australian-Canadian pair of John Peers and Gabriela Dabrowski or Brazil's Bruno Soares and Beatriz Haddad Maia in the quarterfinals. The Indian and her Croatian partner had beaten Spain's David Vega Hernandez and Natela Dzalamidze of Georgia 6-4, 3-6, 7-6(3) in the first round.

Sania and Pavic, seeded sixth, beat the unseeded pair of Georgia's Natela Dzalamidze and Spain's David Vega Hern�ndez 6-4, 3-6, 6(10)-6(3) in one hour and 58 minutes. Six-time Grand Slam winner Sania and Pavic, one-half of the reigning men's doubles Wimbledon champions, faced stiff resistance from their opponents but managed to break them in the eighth game.

Sania, last Wednesday, announced her retirement plans after defeat in the first round of women's doubles at the Australian Open. And her run at the Australian Open came to an end in the mixed doubles quarter-finals on Tuesday, as she and her partner Rajeev Ram lost 4-6, 6-7 to Australian wildcard entries Jaimee Fourlis and Jason Kubler in one hour and 30 minutes.

 India's Sania Mirza and her American partner Rajeev Ram advanced to the quarterfinals of the 2022 Australian Open mixed doubles event after beating Australia's Ellen Perez and Matwe Middelkoop of the Netherlands, here on Sunday. Mirza-Ram won their second-round match 7(8)-6(6), 6-4 in one hour and 27 minutes.

"There's a few reasons for it. It's not as simple as 'okay I'm not going to play'. I do feel my recovery is taking longer, I'm putting my three-year-old son at risk by travelling so much with him, that's something I have to take into account. I think my body is wearing down. My knee was really hurting today and I'm not saying that's the reason we lost but I do think that it is taking time to recover as I'm getting older," Sania told broadcasters after the match at Melbourne Park.

The Indo-Ukrain duo was not in control in the first set losing 6-1 in haste. However, Sania-Nadiia came back strongly in the second set, winning it 6-2 in quick succession. In the super tie-break, the Sania-Nadiia pair lost momentum in the final few points, losing it 10-8. Earlier, Sania and Nadiia had defeated American Shelby Rogers and Heather Watson of Great Britain 6-0, 1-6, 10-5 in a quarter-final clash that lasted for 55 minutes.