Sania Mirza to give Australian Open a miss

Indian tennis sensation Sania Mirza on Saturday said that she will miss the Australian Open early next year owing to a right knee injury.

The 31-year-old said that she is currently troubled by jumper's knee, which is an overuse injury that results in pain at the front of the knee.

Sania was here to attend the Premjit Lal invitation Tennis Tournament, which was organised by Jaydip Mukherjee Tennis Academy.

She played fun doubles match partnered with Somedeb Dev Barman against Vijay Amritraj and Jaydeep Mukherjee and later also played against her father Imran Mirza.

"Basically I have something that's called a jumper's knee. So it's extremely painful...like I am okay to walk but it's painful to change directions and play. That's the biggest problem. So I can run straight but I can't actually do plyometric stuff on it," she told media on the sidelines of the event.

Sania informed that the injury might force her to undergo a surgery.

She said, "When I spoke to my doctor a couple of months ago, they told me to take a couple of months off, then see how it feels before getting into a process of either surgery or injections or whatever. So when I saw them, the pain wasn't less after two months. So now we have to take a call whether we have to do a surgery or take a couple of injections."

Commenting on her comeback, she implied that it won't be any sooner than the Australian Open.

"So it's a little up in the air. I can't tell you a definitive when but it won't be before the next couple of months at least. I will be missing the Australian Open for sure," Sania added.

Quizzed about her certainty on playing the Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games next year, she said, "Hopefully I will be okay for that. I've always said that every time people ask me about plans ahead, as tennis players we don't know about our health. We don't know where will be at that point. It's still one year, it's a long time anything can happen. Hopefully, I'll be healthy again".

Sania won the 2016 Australian Open women's doubles title with Martina Hingis before announcing their split in August. Australian Open was Mirza's third Grand Slam title.