She's perched over her phone as I walk into the interview area. You can tell tears have been shed as she looks up and waits for the camera crew to set up their equipment. An official makes polite conversation and she engages. But it is half-hearted. It hasn't been long since Sania Mirza and her partner Ivan Dodig were blown off court in the mixed doubles final at the Australian Open.
Defeat is a professional hazard for a sportsperson but who says it gets any easier to deal with simply because it happens often? A few days earlier, a couple of Japanese girls ranked outside the top-50 shocked Sania and her partner Barbora Strycova in the third round of the women's doubles. These mixed doubles matches had eased the pain of that unexpected outcome somewhat, but now all that's left is the post-mortem.
Last year, Sania left Melbourne with the women's doubles trophy, her third consecutive Grand Slam title and firmly established as the number one player in the world. This time, she goes back empty-handed.
"To lose any match is disappointing," she says when I ask which of her two defeats in Melbourne this year was more disappointing. "I don't care when I lose, first round or final. Having said that, losing a final is probably easier than losing earlier in a tournament because I think at the end of the day we had a great tournament. And to be in another Grand Slam final for both of us has been incredible. There are only four times we play mixed in a year. So we have to wait for a few months before we get into the French Open."
The contest itself unraveled in unexpected fashion. Here they were, the opening act to the blockbuster scheduled later for the "Twilight session," as they call it on the tickets into the Rod Laver Arena on Sunday. Sania and Ivan - bustling, in-your-face competitors who had reached this stage after coming perilously close to being shown the exit door previously in the tournament - had fought and fought to earn the right to contend for a first major crown together.
Across the court, in Juan Sebastian Cabal and Abigail Spears, they were confronted by a combination made up of the kind of players who usually show up at these tournaments to create a pathway for the more pedigreed players to quell them on their way to bigger things. This is only the second tournament they have ever played together. Dodig and Mirza are in their fifth consecutive Slam together, have experienced a final together and are seeded second. You don't need a studious tennis analyst to identify which team were the favourites.
These past few days have been different, though. Cabal and Spears, quite a collar-grabbing set of second names if you think about it, have steamrolled into this final without dropping a set in their previous four matches. The 30-year-old Colombian doubles specialist has been in a Grand Slam final before but that was over five years ago at the 2011 French Open. The 35-year-old American, who has been in a couple of mixed doubles finals previously with different partners, has already said she will walk into retirement at the end of this year. That they had come this far was a minor miracle in itself.
Why not then, have some fun?
A small crowd has barely settled into their seats before the scoreline already reads 4-0 in favour of Cabal and Spears. Dodig is visibly off his game, starting the match with an error-strewn service game. Cabal, on the other end of the court, is in devastating form, swooping on the ball after crunching it from the baseline, hovering menacingly over high volleys. Sania's forehand, an extension of her personality in many ways, bombastic and no holds-barred, isn't completely her ally on the day. They commit more unforced errors, 6 to 4, hit fewer winners, 9 to 10, and lose 29 of the 47 points in the set that Cabal and Spears pocket 6-2.
Dodig starts the second set with another wobble, allowing 30-0 to quickly turn to 30-40. A smattering of Indian supporters haven't had much opportunity to wave the tri-colour they have placed carefully on their laps but the momentum of the match suddenly takes a twist. Cabal's golden touch forsakes him and Dodig starts to connect on his forehand flank and find the lines. The fragility on Sania's serve too seems to have passed and the scoreline reads 4-1 in their favour.
It is here that the contest takes one final decisive twist. At 4-2, 15-30, Sania serves a double fault and is subsequently broken. At 4-4, with virtually no room for error Dodig serves not one, not two, but three double faults to essentially surrender the contest. Sania and Dodig would end the match having served five double faults in the match and committed 16 unforced errors. Cabal is nerveless in slamming the final nail into the coffin as this unheralded partnership of journeyman and journeywoman scale the highest peak of their professional careers.
"They played really well, we have to give it to them," Sania concedes later. "Especially Abi (Abigail) was playing great. She was returning Ivan's serve pretty well. But having said though, we should have won that second set. We had a chance there and we didn't do it. Obviously when you lose the match you can always play better. Having said that I think they also didn't really give us a chance. They took their chances as soon as they got them and we didn't. We didn't play our best."
While the disappointment of this moment will linger, it is only the first month of a long tennis year. Over the last month in Australia, Sania has captured a title in Brisbane, reached another final in Sydney and another one here in one of her two events. The relentless treadmill of the circuit means she will only have a brief period to recuperate before her next tournament in Doha in the middle of February. She intends to use the time to heal a tired mind and an aching body.
"I have to get my knee checked up," she says. "That's the first thing I need to do. It's hurting me a bit. It's been bothering me for about a month now. I think I have played a lot of matches on it. I played till the end in the last one month in every tournament, so need to get that checked up a little bit. It's been a bit sore. That's the one thing and then rest up and get ready for Doha."