Sania Mirza & Cara Black reach quarters; Rohan Bopanna-Katarina Srebotnik ousted in mixed doubles

Rohan Bopanna & Katarina Srebotnik

Paris, June 1 (IANS) Leading Indian tennis player Sania Mirza proceeded to the women's doubles quarterfinals along with Zimbabwean partner Cara Black at the French Open here Sunday.

However, it was disappointment for Rohan Bopanna, who along with Slovenian Katarina Srebotnik were upset by German-Serbian Julia Goerges and Nenad Zimonjic in the mixed doubles quarterfinals. The eighth seeds won 2-6, 6-4, 10-5 in an hour and six minutes.

Sania and Cara took only an hour and 18 minutes to defeat Serb-Russian pairing of Jelena Jankovic and Alisa Kleybanova 6-3, 6-3 in a Round 3 match on Court No.2.

In the first set, the fifth seeds got one more break of serve to that of Jelena and Alisa which proved crucial to clinch the set in 44 minutes.

The Indo-Zimbabwean combine got the crucial break in the third game of the second set. They easily won their next service game to take a 3-1 lead, setting the tone for victory.

Serving to save the match at 3-5, the fifth seeds proved too strong for the unseeded Jelena and Alisa and the set got over in 34 minutes.

Sania and Cara will take on top seeds Su-Wei Hsieh (Chinese Taipei) and Shuai Peng (China), who took out American 15th seeds Liezel Huber and Lisa Raymond, in the quarterfinal.

Later on the same court, second seeds Bopanna and Katarina got off to a fantastic start when they demolished their eighth seeded opponents in only 23 minutes in the first set by converting both their break point chances to clinch the set.

However, Goerges and Zimonjic came back strongly to take the second set in 32 minutes and level the match.

Though it was a close at the start of the super tie-break, Goerges and Zimonjic made sure they kept the lead.

And when it mattered the most, the eighth seeds closed the set and the match in 11 minutes.