Sania-Barbora enter Pan Pacific Open fil

Tokyo, Sep 23: Sania Mirza and Barbora Strycova entered the women’s doubles fil of the Pan Pacific Open tennis tourment with a 4-6, 6-3, 10-5 win over Gabriela Dabrowski and Maria Jose Marti Sanchez.

The Indo-Czech pair took an hour and 18 minutes to emerge victorious from the tough battle against their unseeded opponents here on Friday, winning 66 of the total 121 points played.

They earlier registered a commanding 6-2,6-2 victory over Miyu Kato and Yifan Xu in the quarter-fils and beat Misaki Doi and Kurumi ra 6-7 (3),7-5,10-8 in the first round.

The second seeds will face Chi’s Chen Liang and Zhaoxuan Yang, who defeated Raquel Atawo and Abigail Spears from the United States 4-6, 6-2, 10-5. It will be the first meeting between the two pairs.

Sania and her new partner Strycova, following the world number one doubles player’s split from Swiss Marti Hingis, won the Cincinti Open last month.

They were then beaten in the quarter-fils of the US Open. The Tokyo event is their third tourment together as a pair.

In the women’s singles category, Agnieszka Radwanska kept her title defence on track with an emphatic win over Olympic gold medallist Monica Puig, defeating her 6-2, 6-3 to claim her fifth semi-fil berth at the tourment.

Radwanska awaits Caroline Wozniacki in the semis who beat Magda Linette 6-4-63. IANS