Aus Open: Petrova-Bhupathi win; Paes-Vesnina stunned

Melbourne, Jan 22 (IANS) India’s Mahesh Bhupathi and Nadia Petrova of Russia defeated Katarina Srebotnik and Nenad Zimonjic to enter the mixed doubles quarterfinals at the Australian Open here Tuesday while last year’s runners-up Leander Paes and Elena Vesnina suffered a shock loss in the second round. Bhupathi-Petrova, seeded fifth, beat the Slovakian-Serbian pair 3-6, 6-2, 10-5 in their second round match at Melbourne Park. The Indo-Russian duo were drawn to meet Paes and Vesnina but the second seeds were tamed by Australia’s unseeded combination of Jarmila Gajdosova and Matthew Ebden 3-6, 2-6 in a late night contest at the Rod Laver Arena. Paes-Vesnina looked out of sorts against their crowd favourite couple. They got seven break points in the first set but could convert only one. The Australians, on the other hand, made the most of the two opportunities they got. Jarmila-Ebden were able to maintain the momentum against their experienced opponents and ran away with the second set to secure the tie in little less than an hour. With the defeat, Paes’ participation in the tournament came to an end. He along with Radek Stepanek were stunned in the men’s doubles first round. They had won the title in 2012. Other Indians in the fray, Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna, had made the mixed doubles quarters with different partners Monday. Yesterday, Sania and her American partner Bob Bryan beat the American pair of Abigail Spears and Scott Lipsky 4-6, 6-1, 10-4 in the second round of mixed doubles. The third seeds needed 57 minutes to finish off their match at the Margaret Court Arena and will next face Lucie Hradecka and Frantisek Cermak of the Czech Republic in the quarter-finals next. Bopanna also found success partnering Su-Wei Hsieh of Chinese Taipei as they edged past Slovak-Italian pairing of Daniela Hantuchova and Fabio Fognini 6-1, 7-5 in 55 minutes on Court No.2. They will next face the Czech Republic’s Kveta Peschke and Marcin Matkowski of Poland. However, the Indian men’s doubles campaign came to an end on Monday as Mahesh Bhupathi lost his third round match. With inputs from IANS