Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna beat home wildcards Jaimee Fourlis and Luke Saville in easy sets. The Indian Tennis Duo moves ahead to the mixed doubles pre-quarterfinals of the Australian Open 2023 on Sunday.
Sania and Rohan Bopanna won their first-round match 7-5, 6-3 in an hour and 14 minutes. Their next opponent will be Ellen Perez, Australia, and Harri Heliovaara from Finland or the American-Dutch duo Nicole Melichar-Martinez and Matwe Middelkoop. (Read Also: World No. 1 Iga Świątek moved in 2nd round of Australian open)
Sania, retiring next month after the Dubai Masters, took the mixed championship crown in Melbourne Doubles with Mahesh Bhupathi in 2009. She previously played with Rohan Bopanna once in mixed doubles at Roland-Garros (2011) and twice at Wimbledon (2011, 2021). The best result for this pair was the All England Club Quarter-Finals in 2011. However, they finished fourth at the Rio 2016 Olympics.
In other games that day involving India’s Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan and N Sriram Balaji, they reached the men’s doubles rankings as substitutes, toppling 5th place and the 2022 French Open runners defeated Ivan Dodig of Croatia and Austin Krajicek of the United States in the first round 7-6(6) 2-6 6-4.
In the junior category, Manas Dhamne won 6-3, 6-3 over local wildcard Jeremy Zhang in the first round of men’s singles. Manas, 15, made his ATP Tour debut at the Tata Open Maharashtra earlier this month as a wildcard. However, Aryan Shah lost 1-6, seeded 2-6 to 10th ranked Brazilian Joao Fonseca.
