Mirza advances, Paes crashes out of Cincinnati Masters

Indian tennis ace Sania Mirza and her Chinese partner Peng Shuai showcased a splendid performance as they booked their place in the quarter-finals of 2017 Western and Southern Open in Cincinnati following a straight-set victory in the women's doubles clash here on Thursday.

The fourth-seeded pair looked dominant throughout the match as they went on to post a comfortable 7-5, 6-4 win over the German- Ukraine duo of Julia Gorgesand and Olga Savchuk in a last-16 clash that lasted one and a half hour.

The Indo-German duo of Mirza and Shuai will now cross swords with the Romanian team of Irina-Camelia Begu and Raluca Olaru for a place in the last four.

In the men's doubles event, Leander Paes and his men's doubles partner Alexander Zverev Jr. suffered a major blow as he crashed out of the U.S. Open warm-up tournament after going down against Spain's Feliciano Lopez and Marc Lopez .

Paes and Zverev failed to capitalise on their comfortable first-set win and slumped to a 2-6, 7-6 (7-2), 10-6 defeat against the Spanish duo in the opening round encounter.