Thaindian News

Melbourne, Jan 25 (IANS) India’s Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi and Sania Mirza were on the winning side of the doubles events at the Australian Open Wednesday.

Sania, however, had a mixed day. She and her Russian partner Elena Vesnina lost the women’s doubles semifinals they should have won with comfort. But later she and Bhupathi won their mixed doubles quarterfinal in straight sets.

Paes and his Czech partner Radek Stepanek are through to the semi-finals of the men’s doubles. The Indo-Czech team thrashed the American-Brazilian pair of Eric Butorac and Bruno Soares 6-4, 7-6(7-4).

Paes and Stepanek will play second seeds Max Mirnyi of Belarus and Canadian Daniel Nestor in the semi-finals.

Sania and Vesnina lost both the first and third sets after being in a commanding position against Russia’s Vera Zvonareva and Svetlana Kuznetsova — though they won the second easily. However, 51 unforced errors proved their undoing as they went down 6-7(4-7), 6-2, 4-6.

The Indian though had something to cheer about as she and her partner Bhupathi beat the American-British team of Liezel Huber and Colin Fleming 7-6(7-5), 6-2 to enter the semi-finals.

India’s Paes partnering Vesnina will play their mixed doubles quarterfinal tie Thursday against compatriot Rohan Bopanna, who has teamed up with American veteran Lisa Raymond.

In the girls doubles, India’s Rituja Bhosale with Indonesian partner Aldila Sutjiadi came back from a set down to enter the semi-finals with a super tie-break victory. They beat Irina Maria Bara of Romania and Latvian Jelena Ostapenko 5-7, 6-1, (10-7).