New York, Sep 5 (Inditop.com) India’s Sania Mirza bowed out of women’s doubles while Mahesh Bhupathi advanced to the mixed doubles second round on the fifth day of the US Open tennis tournament at Flushing Meadows here.
Sania, partnering Italian Francesca Schiavone and seeded 14th, lost 2-6, 6-1, 5-7 to Argentina’s Gisela Dulko and Israeli Shahar Peer in the second round match that stretched slightly over two hours.
Sania and Schiavone could not earn a single break point in the first set, but came back strongly in the second set with two breaks of serves to draw level. In the hard-fought decider that lasted 68 minutes, the Indo-Italian pair wasted six break point opportunities while breaking their opponents once. The unseeded Dulko and Peer broke them twice to close out the match.
Bhupathi and American Lizel Huber defeated American Vania King and Marcelo Melo of Brazil 7-5, 6-0 in the first round. The top seed Indo-US pair will next take on Americans Jill Craybas and Eric Butorac later Saturday.
Before that Bhupathi will turn out with Mark Knowles of Bahamas for the men’s doubles second round match against Americans Jesse Levine and Ryan Sweeting.
Also, fourth seed Leander Paes and Lukas Dlouhy of Czech Republic will face the Spanish pair of Nicolas Almagro and Ruben Ramirez Hidalgo in the second round.
Paes will later play his mixed doubles second round match with partner Cara Black of Zimbabwe against Italian Flavia Pennetta and Dusan Vemic.
Sania, who is also out of the singles draw, will be pinning her hopes on mixed doubles. Sania and experienced Daniel Nestor of Canada have advanced to the second round of the event.
rounak