Paes advances, Bopanna out of Australian Open

Leander Paes and Martina Hingis entered the mixed douibles second round, while the Indo-Czech combination of Rohan Bopanna and Barbora Zahlavova Strycova faltered in the first round of the Australian Open here Sunday.

The Indo-Swiss pair of Paes and Hingis defeated Australian pair of Masa Jovanovic and Sam Thompson 6-2, 7-6(2), as Bopanna-Strycova lost 2-6, 6-3, 4-10 against the French-Canadian third seeded combination of Kristina Mladenovic and Daniel Nestor at the Melbourne Park.

The Indo-Swiss mixed doubles pair of Paes and Hingis registered an easy win in the first set 6-2. But they were taken to task in the second set but managed to win it 7-6(2).

Paes-Hingis fired 21 winners to get the better of Jovanovic-Thompson, who managed only 15. Paes-Hingis made only nine unforced winners as compared to 21 by their opponents.

In the second round, Paes-Hingis will take on Spanish combination of A. Medina Garrigues and Pablo Andujar.

In the junior girls doubles first round, the Indo-Thai pair of Ojasvinee Singh and Tamachan Momkoonthod lost 3-6, 7-6 (2), 9-11 to Uzbekistan's Djurabeck Karimov and Tung-Lin Wu of Chinese Taipei.