The Indian tennis women’s doubles team comprising Sania Mirza and Ankita Raina will begin their Tokyo
Olympics campaign against Ukraine’s Nadiia Kichenok and Lyudmyla Kichenok in
the opening round of the women’s doubles event at 7:30am on Sunday.

While Sania
Mirza is India’s most decorated woman tennis player, Ankita Raina will make her
debut in the Olympics this time.

Mirza, who has
won 42 WTA doubles titles, is a six-time Grand Slam champion and a former World
No. 1 in doubles. The 34-year-old superstar has a stellar record in the Asian
Games with eight medals across four editions starting in 2002.

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Sania Mirza,
who has participated in four Olympics till date, came closest to a podium
finish in 2016 but lost a close bronze-medal playoff alongside Rohan Bopanna in
mixed doubles.

The Tokyo
Olympics will be Mirza’s biggest assignment since her return from a maternity
break in the beginning of 2020.

Mirza’s
partner, the 28-year-old Ankita Raina has a big heart for a fight at the Tokyo
Olympics. But she will depend significantly on Mirza.

Ranked
100, Raina has just one singles main draw victory to show for since the
beginning of the 2021 season.

In the doubles,
she grabbed her first ever WTA title with partner Kamila Rakhimova at the
Phillip Island Trophy in Melbourne in February and broke into doubles top-100
but suffered five straight first round defeats after that.

In
contrast, Nadia, ranked 44, has played eight WTA Tour events with her sister
Lyudmala Kichenok, ranked 48, in 2020 and one this year.  

While
the Kichenok sisters have not enjoyed much success together, Nadiia had decent
results with Romania’s Raluca Olaru in 2021.

Nadiia
and Olaru had won the St Petersburg (WTA 500) in March and reached the
semi-finals in Stuttgart (WTA 500) in April and ended runners up in Bad Homburg
last month.

Interestingly,
Sania Mirza had paired up with Nadiia Kichenok upon returning from her
maternity leave to win the Hobart Open last year.