 Sania Mirza has been given a doubles entry with Sunitha Rao for the Beijing Olympics, according to the list of direct acceptances announced by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) in London on Wednesday.
Sania would thus be competing in both the singles and doubles, in her maiden Olympic Games. The ITF also confirmed the entry for Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes who would be fighting together in their fourth Olympics.
Among the other pairs in the men’s doubles, Roger Federer will be playing with Stanislas Wawrinka and Rafael Nadal will be with Tommy Robredo.
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India’s Sania Mirza and Sunitha Rao will compete in women’s doubles event of the Beijing Olympics as the International Tennis Federation included the pair in the direct acceptance list for the mega-event announced Wednesday. Sania will also compete in the singles event while Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi will lead India’s challenge in men’s doubles, according to the ITF list announced Wednesday.
The All India Tennis Association had written to ITF for a wild card for the duo in the Olympics.
Sania is ranked 19 in doubles, which is going to move up after her quarterfinal appearance in Wimbledon.
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 It was a good day in the office for Indians as Leander Paes along with his Czech partner Lukas Dlouhy played some clinical tennis throughout to oust third seeds Andy Ram and Jonathan Erlich and moved into the semi-final of the men's doubles event while Sani Mirza won her doubles tie as well at the Wimbledon Championships here today.
It took the Indo-Czech pair of Paes and Dlouhy an hour and 46 minutes to nail down the Israeli duo 6-3, 6-3, 6-3 in the quarter-final.
Paes and Dlouhy were very impressive especially when it came to the conversion of breakpoints.
The indo-Czech pair converted four out of the six breakpoints that came their way, while their rivals were found wanting at crucial points as they missed out their all eight breakpoints.
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India’s Sania Mirza and American Bethanie Mattek cruised to the third round of women’s doubles in Wimbledon with a straight-set win over Maria Kirilenko of Russia and Flavia Pennetta of Italy here Saturday.
The 13th seed pair scored a convincing 6-3, 6-4 win in little over an hour.
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Sania reaching out for the ball in her second round match at wimbledon 2008
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 A profligate Sania Mirza squandered four match points to crash out of the women's singles event of the Wimbledon Championships as she lost her second round match 0-6, 6-4, 7-9 to qualifier Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez on Thursday.
The 21-year-old Indian did manage to overcame a sloppy start after losing the first set on love but awful misses on easy points proved fatal for her.
Sanchez showed acumen and tremendous grit and was rewarded for her consistency and hard work.
Sania, seeded 32nd, wasted three match points in the 13th game of the third set, which allowed her opponent to stage a comeback and the Spaniard did it in style backing her game by powerful service and intelligent tennis at net.
Sania took long to get her rhythm and within the first 21 minutes, the Indians had lost the first set without managing a single game.
The Indian then got her act together as she negotiated the attacking net game of Sanchez through some wonderful lob shots.
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June 29: India's challenge at the Wimbledon mixed doubles event collapsed in the second round with all four in the fray crashing out of the event.
Mahesh Bhupathi and Sania Mirza lost to the unseeded Russian pair of Igor Andreev and Maria Kirilenko 6-7, (4), 3-6.
Leander Paes and Australian Rennae Stubbs, seeded 10th, squandered three break points in the decider to go down 3-6, 6-3, 3-6 to Swede Jonas Bjorkman and Australian Alicia Molik.
Rohan Bopanna and his Belarussian partner Tatiana Poutchek, meanwhile, went down 3-6, 6-7 (1) to 13th seeded Swede-American pair of Simon Aspelin and Lisa Raymond in the first of the three mixed doubles matches featuring Indians on Saturday.
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Until a few months ago off-court controversies had infuriated Sania Mirza to such an extent that she vowed never to play on Indian courts again but now the tennis ace says she actually enjoyed the experience as it helped her grow.
"I think it's all been an experience, and, as funny as that sounds, I've enjoyed everything, because if I stop living my life and stop enjoying it, then I probably would have quit a long time ago," Sania said after advancing to the second round of Wimbledon Championships with a hard-fought first-round win.
Sania's roller-coaster career has been marred by several off-court furores. Opposition to her on-court attire, which was dubbed skimpy by some fundamentalist Muslim groups, a court case for allegedly disrespecting the national flag were just a couple of unwanted issues she has been forced to grapple with since turning pro in 2005. |
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 Sania Mirza overcame an injury scare and a spirited challenge from unseeded Catalina Castano of Colombia to advance to the second round of the Wimbledon Championships on Tuesday.
The Indian ace, seeded 32, looked rusty from her recent injury lay-off but came good at crucial moments to score a 7-6 (3), 3-6, 6-4 win over Castano, who has now failed to cross the first round in all her six attempts at Wimbledon.
Sania will next face Spain's Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez, who beat Martina Muller of Germany 6-1, 6-1 earlier in the day.
After saving two break-points in her first game, Sania went into the lead after a break in the fifth game. The next three games went against the serve before the players restored order to push the first set into a tie-break. |
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 Sania Mirza is quietly confident that her ‘new wrist’ will stand up to the rigours of top flight tennis when she plays at Wimbledon, starting on Monday.
The 21-year-old missed the French Open after undergoing a reconstructive surgery on her right — the playing — hand in April and returned to action only a fortnight ago, when she played in the Birmingham grass court event.
Grass, a faster surface, suits Sania’s game. But the speed of the surface also means greater stress on the wrist. |
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