PTI
Melbourne
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.
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.
