French Open 2016: Leander Paes-Martina Hingis make winning start, cruise into pre-quaters

Paris, France: Leander Paes and Martina Hingis entered the mixed doubles pre-quarterfinals of the French Open with a straight-set win over Anna-Lena Groenefeld and Robert Farah, in Paris on Thursday. Paes and Hingis, winners of three Grand Slam titles last season, won 6-4 6-4 against the German-Colombian team. After breaking each other once, the two pairs were level 2-2 when Paes and Hingis broke again and held their own to nose ahead 4-2. [caption id=“attachment_2063431” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File photo of Leander Paes and Martina Hingis. Getty[/caption] That lead stayed with them as the two pairs managed to hold serve after that and Paes and Hingis served out the opening set comfortably in the 10th game. In the second set, Paes and Hingis again broke early – in the third game – for a lead. They staved off two break chances in the eighth game to keep the advantage with them. Groenefeld and Farah kept fighting hard and had two more opportunities to break their fancied rivals when they were serving for the match but Paes and Hingis had enough experience to save those points and finish the match in their favour. They next face winners of the other first round match between the fourth-seeded pair of Yaroslava Shvedova and Florin Mergea and Lucie Hradecka and Marcin Matkowski. Later in the day, Sania Mirza will also open her mixed doubles campaign with partner Ivan Dodig. The second seeds face local pair of Mathilde Johansson and Tristan Lamasine. Another Indian playing today is Purav Raja, who with Ivo Karlovic, face the ninth seeded Lukasz Kubot and Alexander Peya.