Five best performances by Sania Mirza

From becoming the first Indian woman to win a Girls' Grand Slam to reaching the highest rank for a female player from India, Sania Mirza has achieved many a milestone in her career. Not even marrying a former Pakistan cricket captain diminished her in the eyes of India's normally fanatic fans. It is easy to forget that the tennis star, who turns 30 today, has now entered her prime and we can expect many good years from her.

In the final, Mirza and her Russian partner Alisa Kleybanova lost the first set by a score of 6-2 to Czech Katerina Bohmova and Dutch Michaela Krajicek. Indian tennis fans' mind quickly transported back 51 years when Rita Dabur, the last Indian girl to play in the final of a Grand Slam, lost in the singles event in 1952. But the Indo-Russian pair fought back in the second to take the set 6-3 and forced a decider on the hallowed turf of Wimbledon.

In the final set, Sania-Alisa wrapped up the Championship with a 6-2 win in the decider. It was a historic moment for Indian tennis as she became the first Indian woman to win the event, a record that stands to this day.

Sania made her debut in Grand Slams at the 2005 Australian Open as a wild card. She beat Cindy Watson and Petra Mandula in the first two rounds to set up a dream match against Serena Williams in the third round. Even though she lost the match in straight sets to the eventual Champion, the tournament was a success considering the fact that it was the first time she had gone shoulder to shoulder with the big girls.

The Russian was a heavy favorite for the match, and she showed her dominance early on racing to a 4-1 lead, with another break point opportunity. Mirza, however, boosted by the support of the crowd, rallied back to win the next six games on the trot, taking the set 6-4 in the process. Kuznetsova finally won a game to level the second set at 1-1, but was broken in her next service game as the Indian took a lead of 3-1. Mirza broke her opponent again and ended up winning the second set 6-2 and with that the match.

Although Sania went on to beat stars like Nadia Petrova (straight sets) and Martina Hingis (twice), she realized that she was struggling to do so on regular occasions, and after a serious wrist injury, she decided to switch her entire attention to the format that had put her on the tennis map.

2009 Australian Open

In the 2009 Australian Open, they were handed a difficult draw facing 6th seeds Pavel Vizner and Kveta Peschke in the first round. But, Mirza and Bhupathi had found their groove and dropped just one set on their way to the final. The last game of the tournament was against Andy Ram and Nathalie Dechy, who were one of the favorites for the championship having won the French Open together in 2007, and like the Indian pair had just dropped one set coming into the final.

The Indian pair broke their opponents in the very first game and with Bhupathi holding his serve, they took a 2-0 lead early on. But the French-Israeli partnership broke back to take the score to 2-2. However, the Indians were in no mood to lose another final at the Rod Laver arena and when Mirza returned a Dechy serve with her famous crosscourt forehand to setup three break points, that Bhupathi converted on the very next point, they took the lead again.

2015 Wimbledon

2015 saw the creation of SanTina as Sania Mirza teamed up with Swiss star Martina Hingis right before the Indian Wells tournament in March. Sania had been a regular at the semi-final stage in Grand Slam tournaments, even making it to a final, but was never able to get over the line in the Women's doubles. But, SanTina was about to change all that as they went on a 14-game winning streak winning three consecutive events starting with their first match. At the French Open, they could only manage a quarter-final finish losing to eventual champions Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Lucie Safarova.

On the grass of Wimbledon, however, they looked more like the team that looked unbeatable in the earlier part of the year and they proved their dominance dropping just five games in their first two matches. In the semi-final, they came up against the all American pairing of Raquel Kops-Jones and Abigail Spears, who had beaten the No.3 seeds Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Lucie Safarova in the quarters. The Indo-Swiss pair dropped just two games to book a place in the final.

While the two celebrated their first major honour together, the best was yet to come.

While this is not a single match, it is a streak that deserves its own headline. After a shocking defeat at the Cincinnati Masters, SanTina still entered the US Open as No.1 seeds and the favourites lived up to the billing by winning their second consecutive Grand Slam without dropping a single set and going to a tie breaker just once. Following their win, they then won three straight tournaments in China - Guangzhou International Women's Open, Wuhan Open and the China Open.

The Australian Open proved to be yet another piece of cake as the Indo-Swiss pair won it with just one dropped set in six matches. The winning streak now stood at 36 matches and they stood just 8 matches shy of the second spot in the all-time list of record streaks - 44 consecutive wins by Jana Novotna and Helena Sukova. A win at the St. Petersburg Ladies Trophy took them to an even 40 and the duo entered the Qatar Open, knowing that winning the tournament would hand them the record.

But SanTina were not looking like their usual selves when the tournament began and even though they beat the Chinese pair of Yi-Fan Xu and Saisai Zheng, the pressure of the record was becoming more evident. It was the Russian pair of Daria Kasatkina and Elena Vesnina that ended the streak at 41 when they emerged victorious in the Super tie breaker in Doha.