Sania-Marti in Sydney quarters

Sydney, Jan 12: Sania Mirza and Marti Hingis brushed off the challenge from Astasia Rodionova and Ari Rodionova 6-2, 6-3 in the first round of the Sydney Intertiol tennis tourment here on Tuesday.

Sania and Marti, who have extended their winning streak to 27 matches, thus qualified for the quarter-fils. They will meet the Chinese pair of Liang Chen and Shuai Peng in the last eight stage.

The Indo-Swiss combition are on the longest winning run since 2012 when the Italian duo of Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci won 25 consecutive matches. The top ranked pair need one more victory to equal the longest women's doubles winning streak which was achieved by Gigi Fernández and tasha Zvereva when they won 28 matches in a row in 1994.

There was good news for Indian fans in men's doubles also, as Rohan Bopan and his Romanian partner Florin Mergea survived a tough challenge to win their opening round contest. The fourth seeded Indo-Romanian combition faced a tough battle from Denis Istomin and Henri Kontinen before carving out a 6-7, 6-3, 10-8 victory. IANS