Australian Open 2022: Sania Mirza-Rajeev Ram reach mixed doubles quarterfinals

Melbourne, January 23: India's Sania Mirza and USA's Rajeev Ram reached the mixed doubles quarterfinals of the Australian Open 2022 on Sunday (January 23) after straight sets win over the pair of Australia's Ellen Perez and Netherlands' Matwe Middlekoop.

The Indo-American pair continued their winning run at the Melbourne Park with a 7-6 (8/6),6-4 win in the second round match that lasted for an hour and 27 minutes.

The wild-card duo who had defeated the third-seeds Robert Farah-Nicole Melichar in the previous round started the match at a good pace against Mirza and Ram. But Indo-American pair gained the upper hand after taking the first set in a critical tie-breaker.

With momentum on their side, Mirza and Ram upped their ante and cruised to a straight-set win after they broke their opponents early in second.

Mirza and Ram will now face the winners of another second round, all Australian tie between Sam Stosur and Matthew Ebden and Jaimee Fourlis and Jason Kubler, in the quarterfinals.

Earlier in the first round, the Indian and American pair Sania and Rajeev secured a straight-set 6-3, 7-6 win over Serbian pair Aleksandra Krunic and Nikola Cacic on Thursday (January 20).

Earlier in the tournament, Mirza, who announced that she will retire after the 2022 season, crashed out of the women's doubles event. Mirza and her Ukrainian partner Nadiia Kichenok lost 4-6 6-7(5) to Slovenian pair Tamara Zidansek and Kaja Juvan in one hour and 37 minutes.

Meanwhile, fellow veteran Rohan Bopanna exited the tournament early following first round defeats in the men's doubles and mixed doubles competition.

Bopanna and his French partner Edouard Roger-Vasselin lost in three sets to wild card pair of Chirstopher Rungkat and Treat Huey in the men's doubles opening round. The pair lost 6-3 6-7(2) 2-6 in one hour and 48 minutes.

In the mixed doubles competition on Saturday (January 22), Bopanna and his Croatian partner Darija Jurak Schreiber lost to Kazakhstan's Andrey Golubev and Ukraine's Lyudmyla Kichenok. They lost 6-1 4-6 9-11 in one hour and three minutes.