Sania, Bopanna advance in US Open

Top seeded Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis cruised to the third round of the women's doubles category, thrashing unseeded Timea Bacsinszky and Chia-Jung Chuang 6-1, 6-1 at the US Open here.

The Indo-Swiss pair of Sania and Martina thumped Bacsinszky and Chuang in a match that stretched for an hour on Saturday to set up a showdown with 13th seeded Dutch-Czech pair of Michaella Krajicek and Barbora Strycova.

Reigning Wimbledon champions Sania-Martina claimed 62 of the 100 total points in the match in an absolutely dominant show by the top seeds.

In the men's doubles category, sixth seeded Rohan Bopanna and Florin Mergea prevailed over Polish-Mexican pair of Mariusz Fyrstenberg and Santiago Gonzalez 6-3, 7-6 (4) to enter the third round on Saturday.

The Indo-Romanian team took an hour and 26 minutes to complete the win.

They began confidently taking the first set in 38 minutes but then their opponents put up a stiff resistance, stretching the second set to a tie-breaker.

But Bopanna-Mergea emerged stronger in the tie-breaker to win it 7-4 in 48 minutes. They will next play ninth seeded Canadian-French pair of Daniel Nestor and Edouard Roger-Vasselin.

In the mixed doubles matches involving Indians on Saturday, fourth seeded Indo-Swiss pair of Leander Paes and Martina entered the quarter-finals after receiving a walkover from unseeded Australia-Canadian pair of Nick Kyrgios and Eugenie Bouchard.

Rohan Bopanna also joined them after winning 3-6, 6-3, 10-8 with his Chinese Taipei's Yung-Jan Chan against Alla Kudryavtseva of Russia and Alexander Peya of Austria.

The Indo-Chinese Taipei pair took 61 minutes to snatch victory after being put through a stiff contest, pipping their opponents at the post, claiming 60 of the total 114 points won.