Sania leapfrogs to doubles world number 2

The semifinal appearance in the Wimbledon women's doubles on Monday catapulted Sania Mirza and Elena Vesnina to number two slot in the WTA Race to the year-end Championships.

Sania-Elena now have 4506 points in the list, headed by Kveta Peschke and Katarina Srebotnik, who have 6865 points. The top-four pairs compete in the prestigious year-end championship.

"The partnership with Elena has been great in the last four months, specially the Slams. When we started playing together last year at Dubai, and had somebody said that we will be number two after Wimbledon, we would have laughed," Sania told PTI from Dubai.

Sania has taken a three-week break from the circuit to recover from the injury in the left knee.

"It's (knee) sore since I am off the pain killers. I am recovering. Hopefully it will be okay after 10 days rest," she said.

Sania's first tournament after the break will be the WTA event in Washington from July 25.

The good show at the Wimbledon also resulted in Sania achieving the career-best doubles rank of 11, an improvement of three slots. In the singles though Sania slid to 63, a loss of three position, after a first round exit.

In the ATP rankings, Somdev Devvarman rose to career-best 63 in the singles. Leander Paes also improved his doubles rankings by getting back into the top-10.

He is placed eighth while his partner Mahesh Bhupathi is highest ranked Indian in the list at number five. Rohan Bopanna is at number 10, just behind his Pakistani partner Aisam-ul-haq Qureshi.