Sania-Strycova pair enters third round of Wuhan Open

WUHAN: India’s Sania Mirza and her doubles partner Barbora Strycova from Czech Republic notched up a hard-fought win over Gabriela Dabrowski and Maria Jose Martinez

WUHAN: India’s Sania Mirza and her doubles partner Barbora Strycova from Czech Republic notched up a hard-fought win over Gabriela Dabrowski and Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez to advance to the third round of the Wuhan Openon Tuesday.

HT Image

The Indo-Czech pair edged out their Canadian-Spanish rivals 3-6, 6-3, 10-5 in the second round match that lasted for an hour and 15 minutes.

Sania and Strycova will next take on the winners of the match between Timea Babos and Yaroslava Shvedova and Timea Bacsinszky and Svetlana Kuznetsova. Sania paired up with Strycova after splitting from earlier women’s doubles partner Martina Hingis of Switzerland. The duo have produced a series of good performances since then. Their first tournament together was the Cincinnati Open where they defeated Hingis and CoCo Vandeweghe in the final.

KERBER SURVIVES SCARE

WUHAN: Angelique Kerber survived a scare in her first match as world number one before beating Kristina Mladenovic in three sets at the Wuhan Open on Tuesday. The US and Australian Open champion made a convincing start before missing two set points and allowing Mladenovic to take the first set in a tie break.

But the German won 6-7 (4/7), 6-1, 6-4 to set up a thirdround meeting with two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova.

FLIPKENS WINS AT TASHKENT OPEN

TASHKENT, UZBEKISTAN: Second-seeded Kirsten Flipkens of Belgium saved 12 of 14 break points and beat Ana Bodgan of Romania 7-6 (7), 6-3 on Tuesday in the first round of the Tashkent Open.

Third-seeded Cayla Buyukakcay of Turkey was eliminated in the first round.