(CNN)It's never easy to know when to say goodbye to a professional career spanning 20 years, but six-time grand slam winner and tennis trailblazer Sania Mirza says her retirement this week is very much on her "own terms."
The 36-year-old Indian star played her final professional match at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships Tuesday, where, along with doubles partner Madison Keys she lost to Veronika Kudermetova and Liudmila Samsonova 6-4 6-0. Mirza had previously announced her retirement earlier this year.
"I feel a lot of gratitude today. I'll still be around tennis. It's just not competing," Mirza told reporters.
The star, mother to four-year-old son Izhaan, also plans to mentor the women's Royal Challengers Bangalore cricket team.
According to the team, Mirza will "guide our women cricketers about excelling under pressure."
"The whole concept of me being there has nothing to do with cricket," Mirza told the WTA website. "It actually has to do with the mental aspect of things with these younger girls.
"They've never been in positions where they've had careers, so much money, millions riding on them. Many of them haven't been on TV, haven't done ads, shoots. It's so easy to get distracted from that stuff. It's also very easy to tense up and feel the pressure because there's so much expectation of you."
Former world No.1 Victoria Azarenka told the WTA website that what Mirza had done for India, "for the region here, is absolutely remarkable."