Sania advances, Bopan out of Miami Open

Miami, March 25: Indian tennis aces Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopan registered contrasting results with the former advancing and the latter losing the opening round match of the Miami Open at the Tennis Center at Crandon Park here.

It was a rather easy outing for women's doubles top seeds Sania and Swiss partner Marti Hingis, who needed just an hour on Thursday to move past Spanish-Romanian pairing of Lara Arruabarre and Raluca Olaru 6-0, 6-4.

The Indo-Swiss combine were sublime in the first set, winning as many as 24 of the 32 points played and also converting all three breakpoint opportunities they earned.

Though 'Santi' performed well, their first service was not as strong as one would expect from the world's top pair and that was evident in the second set as they served three doubles faults. Sania and Marti also gave away seven breakpoint chances in the second set of which two were converted by Lara and Raluca.

Sania and Marti's overall game was better as they broke the Spanish-Romanian combition thrice in the second set to clinch the match and advance to the second round.

On the other hand, it was curtains for Bopan and Romanian partner Florin Mergea who were ousted from men's doubles competition. Uruguayan-Spanish duo of Pablo Cuevas and Marcel Granollers took an hour and nine minutes to edge past sixth seeds Bopan and Mergea 2-6, 6-4, 10-4.

After sharing the first two sets, it all boiled down to the super tie-break where Cuevas and Granollers proved a tad bit better to clinch the match and progress to the pre quarter-fils. IANS