India’s Sania Mirza, competing at a Grand Slam for the last time, and Rohan Bopanna advanced to the mixed doubles quarterfinals at the Australian Open with a straight-sets win in the second round on Monday.
The duo took 1 hour 17 minutes to beat the Japanese-Uruguayan duo of Makota Ninomiya and Ariel Behar 6-4, 7-6(9) on Court 7.
It seemed Mirza and Bopanna would close out a comfortable victory as they were a break up in the second set, but Ninomiya and Behar fought back strongly to break back and force a tie-break.
Mirza and Bopanna then squandered a couple of match points but eventually got the job done and received loud cheers from the Indian fans in the stadium.
Earlier in the tournament, the Indian duo defeated Australian wild cards Jaimee Fourlis and Luke Saville 7-5, 6-3 in the opening round.
Mirza’s women’s doubles journey at Grand Slam tennis had come to an end on Monday when she and her Kazakh partner Anna Danilina were beaten in three sets by the team of Ukrainian Anhelina Kalinina and Alison van Uytvanck of Belgium.
However, the 36-year-old Indian tennis legend is not done just yet. She and Bopanna will take on the Latvian-Spanish pairing of Jelena Ostapenko and David Vega Hernandez in the mixed doubles quarterfinals on Tuesday.
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