Sania Mirza broke down in front of the media after losing the mixed doubles tennis bronze medal play-off with her partner Rohan Bopanna, and raised doubts if she would be playing at the next Olympics in Tokyo.
India's hopes of their first medal at the Rio Olympics were dashed as Sania and Rohan lost 1-6, 5-7 to Czechs Lucie Hradecka and Radek Stepanek at the Olympic Tennis Centre's Court 1 on Sunday.
"It's really hard (the loss). I don't know if I will be playing tennis in four years," Sania said with tears in her eyes. A few minutes earlier, she wept copiously while being interviewed by a TV journalist.
Sania said it would take some time to get over this. "Unfortunately we were not able to produce our best today," she said adding that as athletes "we have to get over losses and try to bounce back." The Indians were broken in their very first service game as the Czech pair utilised their first break point to take a lead in the first set. The Indian pair went down in an hour and 11 minutes for the bronze medal play-off on Sunday after losing to Americans Venus Williams and Rajeev Ram 6-2, 2-6, 3-10 in the semi-final match on Saturday.
Sania said the second set with the Czechs could have been won by them "multiple times", but they were not able to capitalise on it. "In tennis, when you don't convert your chances, that's what happens to the match. There's not much I can say at the moment. We have to move on," a visibly shaken Sania said. So disturbed was she that she declined to speak in Hindi when asked by some journalists from vernacular papers.
