Australian Open 2017: Rohan Bopanna, Sania Mirza start their title campaign on winning note, march into second round

In the women`s doubles, Sania and Barbora started on a positive note, winning in exactly one hour.

New Delhi: Indian tennis players Rohan Bopanna and Sania Mirza advanced to the second round of Australian Open on Wednesday.

Bopanna and his partner Pablo Cuevas of Uruguay defeated Thomaz Bellucci of Brazil and Maximo Gonzalez of Argentina 6-4, 7-6 (4) in the men`s double category.

Bopanna and Cuevas remained dominated throughout the match, breaking their opponents serve once in each set.

However, Belluci-Gonzalez broke back in the second set to take the match to the tie-breaker which was eventually sealed by Bopanna and Cuevas.

Bopanna and Cuevas will now face the winner of the contest between Robin Haase-Florian Mayer and Alex Bolt-Bradley Mousley.

In women's double category Sania Mirza and her Czech partner Barbora Strycova outplayed UK`s Jocelyn Rae and Anna Smith 6-3, 6-1.

Sania and Barbora started on a positive note, winning in exactly one hour.

They did not face a single break point in the first set, winning 38 points to 32 to take the crucial lead.

In the second set, Rae-Smith broke the service of Sania and Barbora once but it was the latter who dominated after that, winning four out of seven break points.

The fourth seed Indo-Czech pair will next play the winners of the first round match between the Australian pair of Kimberly Birrell-Priscilla Hon and the Aussie-China team of Samantha Stosur and Shuai Zhang.