Bopanna-hesh storm into aussie open pre-quarters

Melbourne : Mahesh Bhupathi and Rohan Bopanna beat Carsten Ball and Treat Conrad Huey 6-2, 6-2 to move into the men’s doubles pre-quarterfinals at the Australian Open tennis tournament on Saturday.

The fourth seeded duo of Bopanna-Bhupathi recorded an impressive 87 percent of first serves in their second round match against the Australian-Filipino combine of Ball and Huey.

The Indians smashed 16 winners as they wrapped up the match in 58 minutes. They next play Americans Scott Lipsky and Rajeev Ram. Leander Paes along with Czech Republic’s Radek Stepanek reached the pre-quarterfinals Friday.

Sania advances
Sania Mirza and Elena Vesnina also advanced to the round of 16 in the women’s doubles.

Sania, partnered by Russia’s Vesnina, won 7-5, 7-5 against Czech-Italian pair of Eva Birnerova and Alberta Brianti in another second round match.

The sixth-seeds, however, looked far from convincing, making 33 unforced errors in comparison to their opponents’ 30. The match could have gone either way but Birnerova and Brianti converted only three out of the 16 break points and lost the match in an hour and 57 minutes.

The Indo-Russian pair will play 12th seeds Jarmila Gajdosova of Australia and American Bethanie Mattek-Sands in the pre-quarterfinals.

Vesnina in her second match of the day paired up with Paes to beat Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Max Mirnyi 6-2, 7-5 in the first round of the mixed doubles.