Wir suchen Dich! » encounter against the all-Germa

Besides the opportunity to defend her womens doubles title with Martina Hingis, Sania Mirza begins her campaign at Wimbledon with an eye on completing a career Grand Slam in mixed doubles in the company of Croatias Ivan Dodig.Mirza won the Australian and French Open with Mahesh Bhupathi in 2009 & 2012 respectively and the US Open with Bruno Soares in 2014, but has never been past the quarterfinals at Wimbledon in the category.Mirza and Dodig have had a good run as a combination since they joined forces at the start of the year, reaching the semifinals at the Australian Open and the final at the French Open, where they lost a close match to Hingis and Leander Paes.He (Dodig) suits my game, we both return really well, thats our strength, Mirza told ESPN from London. A little bit like how Mahesh (Bhupathi) and I used to play. We make a lot of returns, we break serve very often, theres rarely a set that goes by where we dont break the opponents, which is our biggest strength probably. He has a huge serve, hes a quality player, and hes won the French open. So, he knows how to win on the big stage.Since the Olympics begin less than a month after Wimbledon, there had been speculation that Mirza could play at Wimbledon with Rohan Bopanna, who will partner her at Rio. However, Mirza explained why that option wasnt on the table at all.I actually just saw Rohan yesterday for the first time at Wimbledon this year, she said. The reality was that I was already committed?to playing with Ivan. At the end of the day we have to stick to our commitments, we cannot just dump and move on, it doesnt work that way. It would be unfair for me after playing a final with Ivan to say okay, well, I am not going to play now because it is not convenient. It doesnt work like that, it is a professional tour and you have to be professional about it. Thats why Rohan and I have decided to go one week before to Rio. Straight after he finishes in Toronto and I finish in Montreal we will go there for a week and hopefully be ready.While the mixed doubles begins later, Mirzas immediate focus will be to get off to a strong start with Hingis in the womens doubles. Despite early round defeats in both her warm-up tournaments on grass, Mirza believes she and Hingis remain the team to beat on the circuit. Of late, the pairing has endured a few hiccups, including a third round exit at the French Open at the hands of the unheralded Czech pairing of Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova.Since their 41-match winning streak - the third longest in the history of womens doubles - was ended in Doha in February, Mirza and Hingis have won just one of the seven tournaments they have played together.When we played Wimbledon last year we hadnt won 41 matches in a row, Mirza said. We hadnt done well in the clay court season. We lost in the quarterfinals at Madrid, Rome and the French Open. But this time coming into Wimbledon, weve played the final at Stuttgart & Madrid and won in Rome. Weve basically had one bad tournament, so it is all a matter of perspective.Every tournament is new, every match is new but at the end of the day we are the best team out there for a reason. We have been playing really well together and we are the number one team, at least on paper. Thats why every body comes out and plays great against us because they have zero pressure. They are not expected to win and we are expected to win all the time. But thats the pressure that you deal with as the number one team, thats the pressure Novak (Djokovic) or Serena (Williams) deal with and its a privilege as well to have this kind of pressure.Mirza and Hingis won a thrilling final last year at Wimbledon against Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina to capture the womens doubles crown. It was Mirzas first womens doubles Grand slam title and catapulted the team to a run of stunning success that included Grand Slam victories at the US and Australian Opens.Mirza believes the memories of that unforgettable final will most definitely be a positive force as they target a repeat. We came here and people are still talking to us about it, she said. Last year the final was such that everybodys eyes were on it. It was good quality. No matter how many Grand slams I win or have won since then, that one remains the most special only because of the way it unfolded.Will Sania complete mixed doubles career slam at Wimbledon?Mirza and Hingis start their campaign with a first round encounter against the all-German pairing of Anna-Lena Friedsam and Laura Siegemund. Mirza remembers playing the combination in Guangzhou last year and expects it to be a tricky encounter, especially as their opponents possess a big serve that can prove to be a handy weapon on the fast grass court surface.I like playing on it, I like that my ball does so much more on the fast surface. Though I wouldnt say its my best surface, that would still be hard courts, it is the second favourite to me. The reason I played the last two weeks was to get one or two matches in, the practice and the hours in, because no matter how often you have played on grass before, every time you come back to it, its a new battle, she said.You have to get your timing and feel the ball all over again because it comes off very different of the surface. You dont really know what th