Sania-Martina advance to second round of the French Open

Good news for Sania Mirza fans, as she has advanced into the second round of the French Open with her doubles partner Martina Hingis.  The World No.1 women’s doubles pair defeated the Russian duo of Daria Kasatkina and Alexandra Panova  7-6 (4), 6-2, in a match that lasted an hour and a half on Wednesday.

Sania-Martina began the match aggressively on the clay court, notching up a tough 5-0 lead in the first set, but then a few unforced errors prevented them from closing it out soon.  Darya-Alexandra then levelled the score 5-5, and then 6-6. The Indo-Swiss pair though came back to finish off the tie  7-4 to clinch the first set. From then on they didn't let up the heat, taking the second set an easy 6-2, and with that the match.

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Sania and Martina will face off the winners of the match between the pairs Karin Knapp and Mandy Minella and Nao Hibino an Eri Hozumi in the next round.

After clinching three grand slams-Wimbledon, US Open and Australian Open over the last year, the pair clinched the fifth title of season with Rome Masters Win earlier this month.  With the result, Sania-Martina now hold the joint top position in women's doubles with 12045 points each.

Meanwhile,in the men's matches, Rohana Bopanna and his Romanian partner Florin Mergea overshadowed Frenchmen Stephane Robert and Alexandre Sidorenko in a one-sided encounter, while Leander Paes joined earned victory in the first round of men’s doubles with partner Marcin Matkowski.

Feature Image Credit: www.newindianexpress.com