Australian Open: Sania, Bopanna in mixed doubles quarters

Melbourne, Jan 21 (IANS): It was a good day for Indian mixed doubles players at the Australian Open as Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna advanced to the quarter-finals in their respective matches here at the Melbourne Park Monday.

However, the Indian men’s doubles campaign came to an end as Mahesh Bhupathi lost his third round match.

Sania and her American partner Bob Bryan beat the American pair of Abigail Spears and Scott Lipsky 4-6, 6-1, 10-4 in the second round of mixed doubles.

The third seeds needed 57 minutes to finish off their match at the Margaret Court Arena and will next face Lucie Hradecka and Frantisek Cermak of the Czech Republic in the quarter-finals next.

Lucie and Frantisek disposed of seventh seeds and Czech-Italian pairing of Andrea Hlavackova and Daniele Bracciali in the second round.

Bopanna also found success partnering Su-Wei Hsieh of Chinese Taipei as they edged past Slovak-Italian pairing of Daniela Hantuchova and Fabio Fognini 6-1, 7-5 in 55 minutes on Court No.2.

They will next face the Czech Republic’s Kveta Peschke and Marcin Matkowski of Poland.

However, Bhupathi and his Serbia-born Canadian partner Daniel Nestor lost their third round men’s doubles match to unseeded Italians Simone Bolelli and Fabio Fognini.

The fifth seeds lost 3-6, 6-4, 3-6 in one hour and 53 minutes on Court No. 2.

Tuesday will see Leander Paes and Bhupathi in mixed doubles action.

Paes, partnering Russian Elena Vesnina, is seeded second and will face unseeded Australian pair Jarmila Gajdosova and Matthew Ebden in the second round at the Rod Laver Arena.

Fifth seeds Bhupathi and Russia’s Nadia Petrova will take on Slovenia-Serbian duo of Katarina Srebotnik and Nenad Zimonjic on Court No.2.