Australian Open: Leander Paes, Rohan Bopanna Advance in Mixed Doubles
Leander Paes and Martina Hingis defeated Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Dominic Inglot 6-3, 7-5 in the mixed double first round while Rohan Bopanna and Yung-Jan Chan beat John Millman and Kimberly Birrell, 7-5 6-1. However, Bopanna and partner Florin Mergea lost to Treat Huey and Max Mirnyi in men's doubles.
It was a good day at Australian Open for India's mixed doubles pairs as both Leander Paes and Rohan Bopanna advanced to the second round of the event with their respective partners on Sunday. (Read more tennis stories here)
However, Bopanna and Romanian partner Florin Mergea crashed out of the men's doubles in the third round.
Paes and Martina Hingis of Switzerland posted a 6-3, 7-5 win over Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Dominic Inglot in an hour and nine minutes. Third seeded Bopanna and Yung-Jan Chan of Chinese Taipei also hardly broke a sweat before prevailing over the Australian pair John Millman and Kimberly Birrell, 7-5 6-1 in 48 minutes.
Paes and Hingis will next take on American Sloane Stephens and Jean-Julien Rojer. Bopanna and Chan face Andrea Hlavackova and Lukasz Kubot in round two.
However, Bopanna's campaign got over in men's doubles as he and Mergea, seeded fourth, were handed a shock 4-6, 3-6 defeat by 14th seeded duo Treat Huey and Max Mirnyi.