US Open: Paes, Sania, Bopanna, Sharan in Round 3

It was a perfect day in office for Indians as Leander Paes, Rohan Bopanna, Sania Mirza and Divij Sharan advanced to the third round of the US Open in their respective groups here at the Flushing Meadows.

All four Indian tennis players moved into the third round of doubles action Saturday in the final major of the year. In second round men's doubles action, Paes, Sharan and Bopanna won their respective matches while Sania won her women's doubles tie to move into Round 3.

Fourth seeds Paes and Czech partner Radek Stepanek took two hours and 35 minutes to defeat unseeded German-Austrian pairing of Daniel Brands and Philipp Oswald 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 on Court 7.

The Indo-Czech pair took respectively 51, 38 minutes and 66 minutes for the three sets, converting two of eight breakpoints while their opponents could only convert one of 10. Otherwise there was little to choose between the two pairs. In the pre-quarterfinals Paes and Radek will be up against France's 14th seeds Michael Llodra and Nicolas Mahut.

Sixth seeded Indo-French combine Bopanna and Edouard Roger-Vasselin beat experienced Russian duo Nikolay Davydenko and Mikhail Elgin in a two tough sets on Court 7. Bopanna and Roger-Vasselin won 7-6(2), 7-6(0) in one hour and 31 minutes.

Bopanna and his French partner returned the serves well to win 36 of the 90 points while their opponents could win only 19 off 72. Though both the pairs had equal number of winners, the sixth seeds committed far less number of unforced errors. In the pre-quarterfinals, the sixth seeds will face 12th seeded British pair of Colin Fleming and Jonathan Marray.

In his second ever Grand Slam outing, Sharan with Yen-Hsun Lu of Chinese Taipei overcame experienced Israeli pair Jonathan Erlich and Andy Ram 6-4, 5-7, 7-6(2) on Court 13. The unseeded pair will take on fifth seeds Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi of Pakistan and Dutch Jean-Julien Rojer for a place in the quarter-finals.

Elsewhere in women's action, 10th seeds Sania and Jie Zheng of China drubbed Hungarian-American duo Katalin Marosi and Megan Moulton-Levy 6-3, 7-5 in one hour and a half hours on Court 13.

The Indo-Chinese pair converted six of their eight breakpoints whereas their opponents could only convert four of 11. In the third round, they will have a tough outing against sixth seeded German-Czech combine of Anna-Lena Groenefeld and Kveta Peschke.