Sania, Paes advance in US Open doubles event

New York :  Sania Mirza won both her women’s and mixed doubles matches while Leander Paes was also victorious in his mixed doubles match as both Indians advanced to the next round of the US Open here.

Sania and Cara Black, seeded third, eased past Caroline Garcia of France and Romanian Monica Niculescu 6-1, 6-2 to set up a women’s doubles third round clash against Jelena Jankovic of Serbia and Czech Klara Koukalova.

Sania then returned to the court to compete in the mixed doubles event and partnered by Brazilian Bruno Soares, the first seeds registered a facile straight-set 6-2, 7-6 (8) win over Australian Casey Dellacqua and Britain’s Jamie Murray.

In the quarter-finals, the top seeds will play the winner of the match between sixth seeds Katarina Srebotnik of Slovenia and India’s Rohan Bopanna and unseeded Spanish-South African team of A. Medina Garrigues and Raven Klaasen.

Third seeds Paes and Cara Black, though, didn’t have it so easy and had to battle hard for 6-1, 4-6, 10-4 win over Russia’s Alla Kudryavtseva and Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi of Pakistan.

The Indo-Zimbabwean pair will take on American Abigail Spears and Santiago Gonzalez of Mexico in the quarters.