To the delight of all Indians, tennis players Sania Mirza, Leander Paes and Divij Sharan marched into the second round of the US Open comfortably in their respective matches at the Flushing Meadows in New York City.
Unfortunately, it was the end of the road for Mahesh Bhupathi in the men's doubles as he lost his opening round match. With his German partner Philipp Petzschner on Court 9, the Indian lost to veteran combo of Daniel Nestor and Vasek Pospisil of Canada by 3-6, 6-7(4) on Thursday.
On the other side, Sania with her Chinese partner Zheng Jie on Court 16 made a winning start in the women's doubles event. The duo hammered Annika Beck of Germany and Monica Puig of Puerto Rico in straight sets, to win by 6-2, 6-2 at the USTA National Tennis Center. Subsequently, the 10th seeds will play against Hungarian-American combo of Katalin Marosi and Megan Moulton-Levy.
Moreover, veteran tennis star Paes opened his campaign too with a win along with Radek Stepanek of Czech and overpowered Finnish-Russian partners Jarkko Nieminen and Dmitry Tursunov by 6-4, 7-6(4) in a hard fought first round match on Court 10. The fourth seeds are scheduled to play against German-Austro pair of Daniel Brands and Philipp Oswald.
In the meantime, youngster Sharan started his Grand Slam campaign in style too. The Indian partnered Yen-Hsun Lu of Chinese Taipei to crush Dutch pair Robin Haase and Igor Sijsling by 6-1, 7-5 on Court 15. The victorious combination will lock horns with experienced Israeli combo of Jonathan Erlich and Andy Ram in the 2nd round.
