By IANS,
Melbourne : India’s Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi advanced to the second of Australian Open tennis with their partners while Sania Mirza crashed out of the women’s doubles at the Melbourne Park here Thursday.
Third seed Bhupathi and Mark Knowels of Bahamas beat Russian Mikhail Youzhny and Mischa Zverev of Germany 6-3, 6-2 in less than an hour.
Bhupathi and Knowles converted five of the 12 break points to cruise through to the second round where they meet Russians Igor Kunitsyn and Dmitry Tursunov.
Paes and Dlouhy fought back from a set-down to beat Yves Allegro of Switzerland and Fabrice Santoro of France 4-6, 6-1, 6-2.
Allegro and Santoro earned as many as seven break points in the first set and converted two to wrap it in 34 minutes.
Paes and Dlouhy, though, showed intent and converted five of the six break points in the next two sets to finish the match in an hour and 26 minutes.
They will face Italian Fabio Fognini and Ivan Ljubicic of Croatia next.
It was another disappointing day for Sania as she and her American partner Vania King crashed out in the first round.
Sania and King went down 4-6, 6-1, 6-1 to Russia’s Vera Dushevina and Ukraine’s Olga Savchuk in an hour and 51 minutes.
Sania is already out of the singles after losing to Russian Nadia Petrova Wednesday.
Her hopes are still alive in the mixed-doubles, where she reached the finals with compatriot Mahesh Bhupathi last year.