Sania advances, Bopanna beaten

Fourth seeds Sania and her Czech partner Barbora Strycova eased past the Australian-Chinese pair of Samantha Stosur and Shuai Zhang 6-1 6-4 in one hour 21 minutes in a second round duel. The Indo-Czech combination, who finished runners-up at last week’s Apia International in Sydney, will next play Japanese pair of Eri Hozumi and Miyu Kato. However, it was curtains for Bopanna in the men’s doubles event and he and his new partner Pablo Cuevas of Uruguay were knocked out by unseeded Australian pair of Alex Bolt and Bradley Mousley in the second round. Bopanna and Cuevas, seeded 15th, lost 6-2 6-7 (2) 4-6 to their unseeded opponents in one hour and 55 minutes to put an end to the Indian challenge in the men’s doubles competition. In the women’s doubles encounter, Sania and Strycova came up with a dominant display from the word go and broke their opponents twice to race to a 4-0 lead in the first set and dominated the second set to wrap up the match.