New York: Mahesh Bhupathi put behind his shock first-round exit from the men’s doubles event by advancing to the mixed doubles second round, while Sania Mirza and her women’s doubles partner, American Bethanie Mattek-Sands, also cleared the first hurdle in the US Open on Thursday.
With Bhupathi’s successful partnership with Sania in the mixed doubles circuit at an end, the veteran along with his new partner, Andrea Hlavackova of the Czech Republic, beat the American combo of Mitchell Krueger and Samantha Crawford on Thursday night.
It took the sixth-seeded Indian-Czech pair just 57 minutes to outplay their unseeded opponents and win 6-2, 6-4.
Bhupathi and Hlavackova won a total of 58 points as compared to the 41 won by the Americans, dominating throughout.
They will next take on either the American duo of Nicole Melichar and Brian Battistone or the Spanish pair of Nuria Llagostera Vives and David Marrero.
The 13th-seeded Sania and Bethanie thrashed Sorana Cirstea of Romania and Italy’s Alberta Brianti 6-1, 6-1.
They took less than an hour to topple the unseeded Romanian-Italian combination.
Sania-Bethanie got as many as 16 breakpoints, of which they converted five, but that was enough for them to run away with the match comfortably.
They will now face Katalin Marosi of Hungary and Croatia’s Darija Jurak in the second round. (PTI)