Melbourne, Jan 21 (Inditop.com) Leander Paes and Sania Mirza opened their doubles campaign with easy wins but it was the end of road for Mahesh Bhupathi in the first round of the Australian Open at Melbourne Park here Thursday.
Fourth-seeded Bhupathi and his Belarussian partner Max Mirnyi, who reunited for the season, went down to Michael Kohlmann of Germany and Jarkko Nieminen of Finland 4-6,
4-6.
Bhupathi and Mirnyi, who first combined in April 2002 at the Estoril Open and were playing their first match together since the 2004 season-ending Tennis Masters Cup, had reached the quarter finals here in 2004.
Meanwhile, the third-seeded pair of Paes and Czech Lukas Dlouhy began their campaign for a third Grand Slam title – to add to 2009 Roland Garros and US Open trophies — with a 6-3, 6-1 victory over Czechs Leos Friedl and David Skoch.
The Indo-Czech pair reached the semi-final here last year and they now play Argentine Lucas Arnold Ker and Horia Tecau of Romania in the second round.
In the women’s doubles, the 10th-seeded pair of Sania and her Spanish partner Virginia Ruano Pascual swept aside Indonesia’s Yayuk Basuki and Japanese Kimiko Date Krumm 6-4, 6-2 and face Swiss Timea Bacsinszky and Tathiana Garbin of Italy in the second round.
rounak