India saw a day of mixed fortunes at the Australian Open on Saturday as both, Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna won their respective doubles and mixed doubles matches to enter the third round of the opening Grand Slam of the year in Melbourne.
However, there was a tinge of gloom as Mahesh Bhupathi's men's doubles campaign came to an end after a tight defeat.
Sania first took the court for the women's doubles event, and, along with Zimbabwean partner Cara Black cruised to a 7-5, 6-1 win in the second round against Monica Niculescu from Romania and Klara Zakopalova of the Czech Republic.
Later, playing with first-time Romanian partner Horia Tecau, Sania won her mixed doubles first round tie against Hao-Ching Chan of Chinese Taipei and Robert Lindstedt from Sweden.
The sixth seeded Indo-Romanian pair erased a one-set deficit to eventually triumph 4-6, 7-6(3), 10-8.
Veteran Indian star Leander Paes and his Czech partner Radek Stepanek recorded a comfortable 6-1, 6-4 win over Italian Daniele Bracciali and Alexandr Dolgopolov from Ukraine to move to the pre-quarterfinals of the men's doubles event.
Now the fifth-seeded pair will clash with India's Yuki Bhambri and his New Zealand partner Michael Venus, who had shocked 10th seeds Jean-Julien Rojer and Horia Tecau.
Rohan Bopanna also won in both his men's doubles and mixed doubles matches.
Partnering Pakistani Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi, the Indian rallied to beat the British pair of Colin Fleming and Ross Hutchins 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 in men's doubles second round.
Bopanna then joined Slovakian partner Katarina Srebotnik to crush Raquel Kops-Jones and Treat Huey 6-2, 6-3 in the mixed doubles first round.
"Happy to be through to the third round here in Melbourne. Was a tough match today but glad to have pulled it through," Bopanna tweeted after his win.
However, Mahesh Bhupathi and his American partner Rajeev Ram were ousted after a tight 4-6, 6-7(7) defeat against second seeded combination of Alexander Peya and Bruno Soares.
In the girls' singles event, India's Snehadevi Reddy lost 4-6, 0-6 to Chinese rival Ying Zhang.
Simran Kaur Sethi also crashed out with a 4-6, 2-6 defeat against American 14th seed Katrine Steffensen.
In the boys event, Sumit Nagal lost 3-6, 3-6 to local favourite Harry Bourchier.
Photograph: Graham Denholm/Getty Images
