Friday, January 23, 2009

Paes, Bhupathi cruise in doubles; Sania crashes out

Paes, Bhupathi cruise in doubles; Sania crashes out

men’s doubles event at the Australian Open along with their respective partners, while Sania Mirza went down in her opening clash of the women’s doubles here today.

The third seeded duo of Bhupathi and Mark Knowles of Bahamas converted five of the 12 break points that came their way as they overpowered Mikhail Youzhny of Russia and Mischa Zvererv of Germany 6-3, 6-2.

They will take on the Russian pair of Igor Kunitsyn and Dmitry Tursunov in the second round.

Fourth seeds Paes and Lukas Dlouhy fought back from a set down to register a 4-6, 6-1, 6-2 victory over Yves Allegro of Switzerland and Fabrice Santoro of France.

Allegro and Santoro forced as many as seven break points and converted two of those to take the first set in just 34 minutes.

However, Paes-Dlouhy staged a strong comeback and converted five of the six break points in the next two sets to claim victory in an hour and 26 minutes.

They will next face Fabio Fognini of Italy and Ivan Ljubicic of Croatia in the second round.

In the women’s event, Sania continued with her poor from post injury as she and her American partner Vania King went down to Verra Dushevina of Russia and Olga Savchuka of Ukraine 6-4, 1-6, 1-6 in the first round.

Sania will hope to leave her mark in the mixed doubles where she will team up with Bhupathi against sixth seeds Kveta Peschke and Pavel Vizner of the Czech Republic in the first round.

Meanwhile, the top seeded pair of Paes and Cara Black of Zimbabwe will play Anna-Lena Groenefeld of Germany and Nenad Zimonjic of Serbia. (Agencies)

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