Sania, Bhupathi advance; Paes crashes out

MELBOURNE: Sania Mirza kept her doubles campaign afloat, but fifth seeds Leander Paes and Paul Hanley were sent packing by Rohan Bopanna and Rajeev Ram in men's doubles as the Indians completed a reasonably good day at the Australian Open here on Sunday.

Sania, whose singles campaign ended in the third round yesterday, was back to winning ways as she moved ahead in both the women's doubles' and mixed doubles.

In women's doubles, Sania and her Australian partner Alicia Molik completed their rain-affected second round match beating Russians Nadia Petrova and Elena Vesnina 6-3 5-7 6-4 to advance to the third round.

The sixth seeds will now take on 12th seeds Victoria Azarenka of Belarus and Israeli Shahar Peer, who beat the Swiss pair of Emmanuelle Gagliardi and Patty Schnyder 6-3 6-3.

After their successful doubles outing, the Indo-Australian pair was seen fighting each other in mixed doubles.

Sania partnered Mahesh Bhupathi for the opening round of the event and the Indian pair hardly broke a sweat as they ousted local favourites Molik and Nathan Healy 6-1 6-4.

Sania and Bhupathi now have a tough match on hand as they will be up against second seeds Lisa Raymond and Simon Aspelin in the pre-quarterfinals.

Meanwhile, in a major upset, Bopanna and American-Indian Ram shocked fifth seeds Paes and Hanley 6-3 3-6 7-6 (6) in the second round of men's doubles.

Bopanna and Ram will now take on South Africans Jeff Coetzee and Wesley Moodie in the third round.

Paes' estranged partner Bhupathi advances in men's doubles as well where the Indian and his partner from Bahamas Mark Knowles, seeded sixth, swept past Swiss Yves Allegro and Belgian Kristof Vliegen 6-1 6-4 in the second round.

The win has set them up against the 11th seeded Polish duo of Mariusz Fyrstenberg and Marcin Matkowski in the third round.

The Indians had a fine day in the junior competitions as well.

Eighth seed Yuki Bhambri defeated Italian Giorgio Portaluri 6-3 2-6 6-1 in first round of boys' singles to set up a clash with Slovakian Zalan Klempa in the second round.

In another boys' singles encounter, Karunuday Singh rallied to beat Italian Daniele Piludu 4-6 6-0 6-3.

The unseeded Singh will face 10th seed Tsung-Hua Yang in the second round.

However, things didn't go as well for the girls and Janaki Gunuganti lost to fifth seed Serb Bojana Jovanovski 1-6 3-6.