Sannia-Anabel pair sails into second round of Australian Open

Melbourne, Jan 18 (UNI) Putting behind the disappointment of her singles loss, Sania Mirza and her Spanish partner Anabel Medina Garrigues sailed into the second round of the Australian Open women's doubles event with a straight set win over Sandra Klosel of Germany and Aravane Rezai of France here today.

The 10th seeds won 6-1, 6-4 and will now take on the winner of the match between the Ukrainian-Spanish duo of Yulia Beygelzimer and Lourdes Dominguez Lino and the Russian-German pairing of Ekaterina Bychkova and Martina Muller.

Sania, who did not have a very good start to her day going down in straight sets to bow out of the singles event, looked unfazed by the earlier disappointment. Teaming up with Anabel, to whom she lost in the Hopman Cup earlier this month, Sania managed to end the day on a high.

The Indo-Spanish pair was in destructive form in the first set and dropped just one game before clinching the opener in 19 minutes.

The 10th seeds held their serve and broke their unseeded rivals twice in the first set.

The second set, however, proved to be tougher and longer as Sandra and Aravane began to crawl their way back into the match.

The unseeded duo broke Sania and Anabel twice besides saving seven break points but the effort only delayed their loss for some time as the 10th seeds broke back to seal the match in their favour.

UNI