India had a fruitful day at the Australian Open as Sania Mirza and Mahesh Bhupathi stormed into the quarterfinals while top seeds Leander Paes and Zimbabwean Cara Black advanced to the second round of the mixed doubles in Melbourne on Sunday.
However, among juniors, only Yuki Bhambri found success, that too after a lot of hard work, while Ronak Manuja and Rushmi Teltumbde were knocked out in the first round.
The unseeded Sania-Bhupathi pair thrashed the Australian duo of Anastasia Rodionova and Stephen Huss 6-1, 6-2 in 54 minutes.
The Indian players were ruthless and broke their rivals twice in each set and saved seven break points they faced in the match.
They will next face winners of the match between the Canadian pair of Aleksandra Wozniak and Daniel Nestor and second seeded Chinese-Bahamian duo of Zi Yan and Mark Knowles.
The top seeded Paes-Black pair overcame a stiff challenge from Serbian duo of Anna-Lena Groenefeld and Nenad Zimonjic to carve out a 6-4, 4-6, 10-7 win in the first round.
Both the pairs broke each other thrice but Paes-Black, the winners of the US Open last year, eventually prevailed in the deciding super-tie breaker to move to the next level.
They will next face Patty Schnyder of Switzerland and Wesley Moodie of South Africa, who defeated the Russian-Brazilian combination of Alisa Kleybanova and Bruno Soares 6-3, 6-4 in their first round match.
Meanwhile, in the boys event, top seed Yuki survived early scares to pull off the marathon opener against unseeded German Sanchez Delfin of Mexico 4-6, 6-1, 8-6.
However, it was curtains for Ronak Manuja, who lost 6-7 (3), 6-1, 11-13 to local Jordan Szabo.
In the girls event, Rushmi Teltumbde also made an early exit, losing her first round match 2-6, 4-6 to Nicha Lertpitaksinchai of Thailand.
The other two Indian boys competing are Sudarwa Sitaram and Kaza Vinayak Sharma.
Sitaram will play his first round against Pierre-Hugues Herbert of France while Vinayak will lock horns with Patrik Brydolf of Sweden tomorrow.
The girls event will see Kyra Shroff presenting the Indian challenge. She has been drawn against Monika Tumova of Czech Republic for her opening round on Monday.
Paes and his Czech partner Lukas Dlouhy, seeded fourth, will play their men's doubles third round against Australian duo of Paul Hanley and Jordan Kerr.
Bhupathi and Knowles, seeded third, will lock horns with Nicolas Lapentti of Ecuador and Spain's Tommy Robredo.
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