Sania-Anabel pair breezes into 3rd round of women's doubles

Melbourne, Jan 19 (UNI) Sania Mirza looked determined to atone for her second round exit from singles event and the Hyderabadi ace teamed up with Spaniard Anabel Medina Garrigues to wallop the Ekaterina Bychkova-Martina Muller pair in straigth sets and waltz into the third round of the women's doubles event of the Australian open here today.

The 10th seeded Sania-Anabel pair took 83 minutes to down Russian Ekaterina and the latter's German teammate Martina 6-3, 6-4.

They, however, face a tough job in the third round, which pits them against sixth seeds Daniela Hantuchova and Ai Sugiyama after the Slovak-Japanese pair thrashed Michaella Krajicek (Holland) and Agnes Szavay (Hungary) 6-3, 6-2 in another second round match.

Sania and Anabel looked in perfect sync and the Indian was especially impressive with her controlled aggression.

Sania served well and went selectively for the winners, while Anabel proved the perfect foil. Broken twice in the set, the seeded pair responded by breaking back thrice and it took them 40 minutes to wrap up the set and go one up.

The Ekaterina-Martina duo, however, refused to throw in the towel and turned the heat in the second set, forcing a couple of unforced errors from their rivals.

Sania and Anabel, however, did well to break their opponents once and saving both the break points as well to complete a comprehensive victory.

UNI