Paris: Sania Mirza and Cara Black, seeded fifth, were today pitted against the very competitive team of Daniela Hantuchova and Shahar Peer in their opening round of the French Open women's doubles event in Paris.
Sania has never won a Major trophy in women's doubles and her best performance has been with Russian partner Elena Vesnina at this very tournament when they ended runners-up in 2011. Sania also won her second mixed doubles Grand Slam title at Roland Garros in 2012 with compatriot Mahesh Bhupathi. In the run-up to the French Open, Sania and Cara ended runners-up twice and made the quarterfinals at two other clay court tournaments.
In the men's doubles, Rohan Bopanna and his Pakistani partner Aisam-ul-haq Qureshi have been seeded sixth and they open their campaign against big-serving Ivo Karlovic and Stephane Robert.
Coming to the clay court Grand Slam, Bopanna and Qureshi finished runners up at Nice. Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupath are not playing at Roland Garros this year for different reasons.
