Sania, Bopanna advance in Oz Open doubles

Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna won their respective doubles matches in contrasting style to make it an all-win day for the Indians in the Australian Open in Melbourne on Wednesday.

Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna won their respective doubles matches in contrasting style to make it an all-win day for the Indians in the Australian Open in Melbourne on Wednesday.

HT Image

Sania and her Australian partner Alicia Molik, seeded sixth, won a two-hour battle against the unseeded Greco-German pair of Eleni Daniilidou and Jasmin Woehr 6-3 4-6 6-4 to advance to the second round.

Bopanna, on the other hand, teamed up with American-Indian Rajeev Ram to oust British-American duo of James Auckland and Sam Querrey 6-1 7-6 (4).

Bopanna and Ram will next be up against the winners of match between fifth seeded Indian-Australian team of Leander Paes and Paul Hanley and unseeded Luis Horna of Peru and Austrian Stefan Koubek.

Sania and Molik, meanwhile, will take on Russians Nadia Petrova and Elena Vesnina, who breezed past local favourites Sophie Ferguson and Trudi Musgrave 6-3 6-4.

Sania, who on Tuesday won her opening round singles encounter, and Molik were tested hard in the engrossing first-round clash.