Melbourne, Jan 22 (IANS) India's Divij Sharan on Wednesday advanced to the second round of men's doubles event at the Australian Open after beating Pablo Carreno Busta and Joao Sousa along with his New Zealand partner Artem Sitak, but Rohan Boppanna was knocked out.
Divij and Sitak needed an hour and 28 minutes to win the first-round match 6-4, 7-5 against their lower-ranked opponents. The pair won 69 per cent first serve points and hit 27 winners to get their Australian Open campaign going.
Bopanna went down to USA's Bryan brothers, Bob and Mike, 1-6, 6-3, 3-6 partnering Yasutaka Uchiyama of Japan.
Rohan will stay on in the competition, however, as the 39-year-old will partner comeback star Sania Mirza in the mixed doubles event.
On Thursday, Mirza, who won the doubles title in Hobart International, will team up with Nadiia Kichenok of Ukraine for the Australia Open.
The duo will face Chinese pair of Xinyun Han and Lin Zhu in their women's doubles first round clash.
--IANS
dm/bbh
Copyright and Disclaimer: All news and images appearing in our news section, search engines and social media are provided by IANS. If you face any issues related to the content/images, please contact our news service provider directly. We are not liable/responsible for any content/images related to the news service provider.
|