India’s Sania Mirza and Israeli Shahar Peer’s run at Wimbledon came to a halt today as they lost to top seeds Lisa Raymond and Samantha Stosur in three sets. For Mirza this is another bullet point in the list of controversies she has found herself in. Be it for her T-shirts, religious fatwas or for her comments on pre-marital sex, Sania has managed to stay in the news for more reasons away from the tennis court.

But full credit to the girl for doing what she thinks is right. This partnership with Israeli Shahar Peer is particularly significant considering the two were criticized by religious groups for pairing in the Japan Open in 2005. I had hoped the two would do well and shut people up, too bad they had to run into the top seeds so early in the tournament!

I don’t care too much for what religious fundamentalists have to say but stay the hell out of sport!

Not the first controversial pairing:

However, the Mirza-Peer team is not the first controversial pairing in the world of tennis. That title should definitely go to the duo of Althea Gibson and Angela Buxton. Althea Gibson is well known for being a breaker of barriers, the first black to play both the US Open and Wimbledon, she was also the first black to win Wimbledon (however her achievements are much less known than those of Arthur Ashe) and was an inspiration to a number of players including the Williams sisters.

However, the Gibson-Buxton partnership is not very well known. Anti-Semitism kept Buxton out of a number of British clubs in the same way racism kept Gibson out of white clubs in the U.S. By the time the two met (in India of all places!), Gibson was nearing 30 and had remained in the sidelines due to restrictive polices in the U.S.

The following French Open found the two without partners (because no one would partner them) and the rest is history. Gibson and Buxton partnered in both the French Open and Wimbledon and would win both quite convincingly. Althea Gibson would go on to win 5 grand slam titles including 2 Wimbledon titles.

And if you had taken our Wimbledon quiz , you would know that in 1995 Gibson wrote a letter to Buxton saying that she was sick, poor and forgotten. Buxton immediately got the letter published (without Gibson’s knowledge) and managed to raise over a million dollars for Gibson.

Lets hope the Mirza-Peer team wins a couple of grand slams before they quit!