Sania advances, Bopanna exits

It was a mixed day in office for Indian tennis players in the season-opening Australian Open with Sania Mirza sailing into the third round of the women's doubles event even as Rohan Bopanna crashed out of the men's doubles, here.

Fourth seeds Sania and her Czech partner Barbora Strycova eased past the Australian-Chinese pair of Samantha Stosur and Shuai Zhang 6-1 6-4 in one hour 21 minutes in a second round duel.

The Indo-Czech combination, who finished runners-up at last week's Apia International in Sydney, will next play Japanese pair of Eri Hozumi and Miyu Kato.

However, it was curtains for Bopanna in the men's doubles event and he and his new partner Pablo Cuevas of Uruguay were knocked out by unseeded Australian pair of Alex Bolt and Bradley Mousley in the second round. Bopanna and Cuevas, seeded 15th, lost 6-2 6-7 (2) 4-6 to their unseeded opponents in one hour and 55 minutes to put an end to the Indian challenge in the men's doubles competition. Veteran Leander Paes and his partner Andre Sa of Brazil, as well as the all-Indian pair of Purav Raja and Divij Sharan have already made first round exits from the event.

In the women's doubles encounter, Sania and Strycova came up with a dominant display from the word go and broke their opponents twice to race to a 4-0 lead in the first set.

But Sania and Strycova got their acts together in time and won three straight games to level the scores at 3-3.

The Indo-Czech pair then broke their opponents with a forehand volley to take a 5-4 lead and serve for the match.

But Sania and Strycova were made to work hard by Stosur and Zhang as the Indo-Czech duo had to save five break points and needed four match points to win the final game that lasted over 13 minutes.