Paes, Sania advance to mixed doubles quarters

India's Leander Paes and Sania Mirza advanced to the quarter-finals of the of the mixed doubles event, winning their respective matches at the Australian Open tennis tournament here Monday.

Paes and Switzerland's Martina Hingis moved to the last eight stage prevailing over Spanish pair of Pablo Andujar and Anabel Medina Garrigues 6-3, 6-1 while top seeded Sania and Brazilian Bruno Soares defeated unseeded Santiago Gonzalez of Mexico and American Abigail Spears 7-5, 6-7 (3), 10-8 at the Melbourne Park.

The seventh seeded Indo-Swiss pair took just 51 minutes to register a comfortable victory which they dominated from the very beginning, unleashing 26 winners and only two unforced errors.

They are scheduled to play the winner of the second round match between unseeded pair of Hao-Ching Chan of Chinese Taipei and Jamie Murray of Great Britain and fourth seed Andrea Hlavackova of Czech Republic and Austrian Alexander Peya.

Earlier in the day, the Indo-Brazilian pair of Sania-Soares were made to sweat for their second round win, needing 93 minutes to claim the close contest.

The winning duo hit 45 winners compared to 33 by their opponents and committed 12 unforced errors, two fewer than the losing team and claimed 86 points in total.

They will nest play the victor of the second round match between Slovakian Andreja Klepac-Australian Chris Guccione and the Australian pair of Casey Dellacqua and John Peers.