Qureshi and Mirza at Wimbledon

By Parvez Fatteh, Founder of http://sportingummah.com, sports@muslimobserver.com

Pakistan’s Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi and India’s Sania Mirza represented the sporting Ummah at the 2010 All-England Tennis Championships, more commonly known as Wimbledon. Pakistani doubles specialist Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi has gotten some momentum going in England. Paired up with Indian partner Rohan Bopanna, the duo has reached the quarterfinals of the men’s doubles competition. Most recently, in the round of 16, they defeated Lukas Lacko and Sergiy Stakhovsky 7-5, 7-6 (7-4), 6-2. The round before that they emerged victorious from a marathon match with Philipp Marx and Igor Zelenay 6-7 (6-8), 6-4, 6-4, 4-6, 13-11. Qureshi and Bopanna now face Jurgen Melzer and Philipp Petzschner in the quarterfinals.

Hyderabad’s Sania Mirza has struggled with injuries in recent months. And her struggles spilled over into her performance on the court, as she was easily dispatched in the first round of the women’s singles event 6-4, 6-1 by 55th seeded Angelique Kerber of Germany. Mirza started out on a positive note in the women’s doubles competition, teaming up with Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki to defeat England’s Anne Keothavong and Melanie South 6-4, 6-1 in the first round. However, Mirza and Wozniacki went down in defeat in the second round to 11th seeds Cara Black of Zimbabwe and Daniela Hantuchova of Slovakia. The final score was 7-6 (7-0), 6-3.

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