Sania Mirza and her Spanish partner Nuria Llagostera Vives entered the second round of Kremlin Cup after a hard-fought victory over Darya Kustova of Belarus and Ukraine's Olga Savchuk here on Tuesday.
The third seeded pair beat their unseeded opponents 6-3, 5-7, 10-6 in a battle that lasted over an hour.
Sania and Nuria will take on the winner of the match between Abigail Spears and Raquel Kops-Jones and Kveta Peschke and Anna-Lena Groenefeld in the second round.
Sania and Nuria wasted as many as eight breakpoint opportunities out of 11, while the Belarusian-Ukrainian duo let go four of the six break chances.
There was little to differentiate between the two teams as both committed a number of unforced errors but Sania and Nuria managed to keep their nerves to walk away with the match.
Sanam advances
Nanjing (China): Sanam Singh scored an easy straight-set win over China’s De Zhu to move into the final round of the qualifiers of the Asia-Pacific Australian Open wild card play-off tournament, here on Tuesday.
The Indian beat the local player 6-3, 6-1 in the third round of the qualifiers.
{{/usCountry}}The Indian beat the local player 6-3, 6-1 in the third round of the qualifiers.
{{/usCountry}}Sanam, who had got byes in the first two rounds, will next face another Chinese, Zhizhen Zhang in the final round. A win in the final round will take him to the main draw.