Indians excel at the Australian Open: Sania, Paes advance, Bhupathi crashes

Melbourne: India enjoyed a good day at the Australian Open today as Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna won both their respective doubles and mixed doubles matches to enter the third round of the showpiece event here.

However, Mahesh Bhupathi's men's doubles campaign came to an end after a tight defeat.

Sania first took the court for the women's doubles event and along with Zimbabwean partner Cara Black cruised to a 7-5 6-1 win in the second round against Monica Niculescu from Roumania and Klara Zakopalova of Czech Republic.

Later, playing with first-time Romanian partner Horia Tecau, she won her mixed doubles first round against Hao-Ching Chan of Chinese Taipei and Robert Lindstedt from Sweden.

The sixth seeded Indo-Romanian pair erased a one-set deficit to win 4-6 7-6(3) 10-8.

Veteran Indian star Leander Paes and his Czech partner Radek Stepanek, seeded fifth, recorded a comfortable 6-1 6-4 win over Italian Daniele Bracciali and Alexandr Dolgopolov from Ukraine to move to the pre-quarterfinals of the men's doubles event.

Now Paes and Stepanek will clash with India's Yuki Bhambri and his New Zealand partner Michael Venus, who had shocked 10th seeds Jean-Julien Rojer and Horia Tecau.

Rohan Bopanna also emerged victorious today in both men's doubles and mixed doubles. With seventh seeded Pakistani partner Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi, the Indian rallied to beat the British pair of Colin Fleming and Ross Hutchins 4-6 6-3 6-2 in men's doubles second round.

Bopanna then enjoyed success in the mixed doubles as well. He and her Slovakian partner Katarina Srebotnik, seeded second, overwhelmed Raquel Kops-Jones and Treat Huey 6-2 6-3 in the mixed doubles first round.

"Happy to be through to the third round here in Melbourne. Was a tough match today but glad to have pulled it through," Bopanna tweeted after his win.

However, Mahesh Bhupathi and his American partner Rajeev Ram were ousted after a tight 4-6 6-7(7) defeat against second seeded combination of Alexander Peya and Bruno Soares.

In the girls' singles event, India's Snehadevi Reddy lost 4-6 0-6 to Chinese rival Ying Zhang.

Simran Kaur Sethi also crashed out with a 4-6 2-6 defeat against American 14th seed Katrine Steffensen.

In the boys event, Sumit Nagal lost 3-6 3-6 to local favourite Harry Bourchier.