Sania's sojourn ends, Bhupathi enters quarters in doubles

Melbourne, Jan 22 (UNI) Mahesh Bhupathi's win in the doubles pre-quaterfinals was the only silver lining as the Indians had a forgettable day at the Australian Open today with Sania Mirza crashing out in both doubles and mixed doubles here.

Bhupathi and his Czech partner Radek Stepnak continued their winning streak in the men's doubles event upsetting the seventh seeded Israeli pair of Jonathan Elrich and Andy Ram 7-6 (4), 4-6, 6-3 to enter the quarterfinals.

The Indo-Czech pair will now be up against the second seeded Swedish-Belarussian pair of Jonas Bjorkman and Max Mirnyi in the round of eight.

In a battle lasting close to two hours, Bhupathi and Stepnak once again showed immense determination as they got the better of their seeded rivals.

But, Bhupathi failed to survive in the mixed doubles as he and Slovakian Daniela Hantuchova were unlucky to lose the first round tie 6-4, 6-7 (4), 8-10 against Serbian duo of Nenad Zimonjic and Jelena Jankovic in an over two-hour contest.

Earlier, tenth seeds Sania Mirza and her Spanish partner Anabel Medina Garrigues fought hard but ran out of steam in the closing stages as they went down 6-7 (5), 7-6 (5), 2-6 to sixth seeded Slovakian-Japanese pair of Daniela Hantuchova and Ai Sugiyama in the third round.

Sania and Fabrice Santoro of France then lost to second seeded Mark Knowles (Bahamas)/Rennae Stubbs (Australia) pair 6-7, 6-1, 7-10 in the mixed doubles to end the Hyderabadi's sojourn in the first Gland Slam event of the year.

Meanwhile, India's campaign at the junior events had mixed fortunes as Rupesh Roy went down 6-2, 3-6, 3-6 to French Kevin Botti in the boys' singles event while Roy and Stephen Donald of Australia, seeded eighth, had an easy outing to down Valentin Dimov of Bulgaria and Fumiaki Kita of Japan 6-2, 6-1 in the boy's doubles.

UNI