Bopanna, Sania enter second round of Australian Open

Melbourne, Jan 18: Indian tennis players Rohan Bopanna and Sania Mirza advanced to the second round of Australian Open on Wednesday.

Bopanna and his partner Pablo Cuevas of Uruguay defeated Thomaz Bellucci of Brazil and Maximo Gonzalez of Argentina 6-4, 7-6 (4) in the men's double category.

Sania and her Czech partner Barbora Strycova outplayed UK's Jocelyn Rae and Anna Smith 6-3, 6-1 in the women's doubles.

Bopanna and Cuevas will now take on Australians Alex Bolt and Bradley Mousley, who defeated Robin Haase and Florian Mayer 6-3, 5-7, 6-4.

The fourth seed Indo-Czech pair will next play the winners of the first round match between the Australian pair of Kimberly Birrell-Priscilla Hon and the Aussie-China team of Samantha Stosur and Shuai Zhang.

In the women's doubles, Sania and Barbora started on a positive note, winning in exactly one hour.

They did not face a single break point in the first set, winning 38 points to 32 to take the crucial lead.

In the second set, Rae-Smith broke the service of Sania and Barbora once but it was the latter who dominated after that, winning four out of seven break points.