Sania Mirza retires: 5 records created by Indian tennis legend

India legend Sania Mirza hung up her boots from professional tennis on Tuesday after she and her American partner Madison Keys endured a first round defeat at the women’s doubles event in the WTA Dubai Open. The 36-year-old and Keys lost in straight sets of 4-6, 0-6 to Russian pair Liudmila Samsonova and Veronika Kudermetova. Last month, the Indian tennis legend reached the finals of the mixed doubles contest at the Australian Open with Rohan Bopanna. Mirza had declared that the tournament was her last Grand Slam and that she would retire after the Dubai event. Read | Twitter hails Sania Mirza on her retirement Sania Mirza, a trailblazer for female players in tennis, began her career in 2003 and in her career earned various ‘firsts’. As the six-time Grand Slam winner bows out of tennis, let’s take a look at her achievements: First Indian woman to win a Grand Slam title In her two-decade long career, Sania Mirza has won six Grand Slams. The first time she created history was with fellow Indian tennis legend Mahesh Bhupathi. The duo claimed the Australian Open mixed doubles title in 2009, and Mirza became the first Indian woman to take home a Grand Slam trophy. She later won the French Open mixed doubles with Bhupathi in 2012. In 2014, Sania partnered with Bruno Soares to take home the US Open mixed doubles. After that, she partnered successfully with Martina Hingis to take home the women’s doubles trophy at the Wimbledon and US Open in 2015 and the Australian Open in 2016. First Indian woman to win a WTA title As a 17-year-old breaking into competitive tennis, Sania Mirza became the first Indian woman to win a WTA title in 2004. She paired up with Liezel Huber at the Hyderabad Open to win the doubles trophy. When she was 18, Mirza won the single’s trophy at the same event, not letting her wild card status or games against seeded players like Maria Kirilenko, Zheng Jie and Alona Bondarenko pose any obstacle. With this achievement, she became the first Indian woman to win a WTA singles event. First Indian woman to be World No 1 Sania became the first Indian woman to reach the No. 1 spot in either singles or doubles WTA rankings in 2015 after a doubles win at Charleston. She spent 91 weeks as the world No 1 in doubles and throughout her career won 43 WTA doubles titles. First Indian woman to break into WTA’s top 30 singles ranking Sania Mirza was the first Indian woman to break into the top 50 of the WTA singles rankings. In 2007, she achieved a career-high of world no. 27 in singles. First Indian woman to reach Grand Slams fourth round in singles In 2005, Sania Mirza made more history by reaching the four round at the US Open and becoming the first Indian woman to reach the fourth round in the singles competition of a Grand Slam event. Her singles campaign ended with a defeat to Maria Sharapova. Sania Mirza is now set to start another chapter in her career. The tennis legend will assume the position of mentor for Royal Challengers Bangalore at the Women’s Premier League starting in March this year. Read all the  Latest News ****,  Trending News ****,  Cricket News ****,  Bollywood News ****,  India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook ****,  Twitter  and  Instagram ****.