Indian star Sania Mirza admitted she may have played her last Olympic Games after she and Rohan Bopanna failed in their bid to give their country its first medal of the Rio Games.
 The pair lost the tennis mixed doubles bronze medal play-off, going down 6-1, 7-5 to Lucie Hradecka and Radek Stepanek of the Czech Republic in just 71 minutes. Mirza and Bopanna had lost in the semi-finals on Saturday to Venus Williams and Rajeev Ram of the United States.
 It was a third tennis bronze in Rio for the Czechs after Petra Kvitova in women’s singles and Lucie Safarova and Barbora Strycova in the women’s doubles.
 “The Olympics is only over four years. I don’t know if I will be still playing in four years,” said the 29-year-old who was on the verge of tears as she addressed the media under a sweltering Rio sun. “We didn’t play our best, but that’s sport. It’s going to take some time to get over this. We had chances and in the second set we could have won multiple times. There’s not a lot I can say to you guys at the moment.”
 It was a disappointing tennis event for India in Rio. Leander Paes, playing in his seventh Olympics, and Bopanna lost in the first round of the men’s doubles. Mirza and Prarthana Thombare were defeated in the second round of the women’s doubles.
 India are still without a medal and staring at their fourth washout in recent times having failed to win a medal in 1984, 1988 and 1992. They have won just two golds in 36 years — men’s hockey in the boycotted Games in Moscow in 1980 and men’s shooting at Beijing in 2008.
 For 37-year-old Stepanek, winning bronze felt just as good as winning the Davis Cup.
“I can compare this with the Davis Cup finals, where we were a couple of years ago because I think the nicest, deepest and strongest emotions you can only achieve when you play for your country,” said the Czech who performed a ‘crab’ dance in the media mixed zone before breaking into his version of Queen’s Radio Ga Ga.
 “I would recommend everyone to at least go through it once. It is something amazingly special. This medal belongs to our whole country. I’m slowly losing my words because I am slowly starting to realise what we have achieved and maybe at the end of the mixed zone I am going to cry,” he added.
Makarova-Vesnina
shatter Hingis’ gold bid
Russia’s Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina shattered Martina Hingis’ hopes of a golden Olympic return after a 20-year absence with victory in the women’s doubles final yesterday. The seventh seeds won 6-4, 6-4 against Hingis and Swiss partner Timea Bacsinszky. Hingis last played the Olympics in 1996 in Atlanta.
 For the Russian duo, the gold medal comes on top of their two Grand Slam titles together at the 2013 French Open and 2014 US Open. “We were in good shape because we won the tournament right before. We won! Oh my God,” said Vesnina, who captured the Montreal doubles title with lifelong friend Makarova on the eve of Rio.
 However, that victory almost cost them dear as a series of flight delays and cancellations meant it took the pair the best part of four days to get to Brazil, arriving two days before the event started. The result ended a difficult Olympics for 35-year-old Hingis. First, Roger Federer, her scheduled partner in the mixed doubles, withdrew with injury and a day later Belinda Bencic, her doubles teammate, also pulled out.
 
Nishikori beats Nadal for bronze
Kei Nishikori won Japan’s first Olympic tennis medal in almost a century yesterday when he captured bronze against Rafael Nadal, despite the weary Spaniard mounting a stirring mid-match fightback. Nishikori triumphed 6-2, 6-7 (1/7), 6-3 to become the first Japanese tennis medallist since Antwerp in 1920 when the country won men’s silver and men’s doubles silver.