Paes, Bopanna advance at French Open

Rohan Bopanna and Leander Paes have crossed the first-round hurdle in men's doubles while Sania Mirza bowed out in the opening round of the women's doubles event in Paris yesterday. 

Bopanna along with his Uruguayan partner Pablo Cuevas outplayed the French duo of Mathias Bourgue and Paul-Henri Mathieu, posting a comfortable 6-1, 6-1 victory. They will take on Treat Huey and Denis Istomin in the next round. 

Leander Paes and his American partner defeated Radu Albot of Moldova and Hyeon Chung of South Korea 7-6 (7-5), 4-6, 6-2 in a match which lasted for one hour 55 minutes.

However, fourth seeded pair of Sania Mirza and Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan were stunned by unseeded Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova



of Russia and Australia's Daria Gavrilova 6-7, 6-1, 2-6. It was a hard fought match that lasted 2 hours and 23 minutes.

Meanwhile, in the Men's singles, French Open title rivals Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic stormed into next round, while women's defending champion Garbine Muguruza survived a second-round scare. Nadal outclassed Dutchman Robin Haase 6-1, 6-4, 6-3. Defending champion Djokovic battered Portugal's Joao Sousa 6-1, 6-4, 6-3. However, the 12th seeded Wilfred Tsonga of France crashed out of the tournament.

In women's singles, defending champion Garbine Muguruza, Venus Williams of the United States reached the next round along with her compatriot Bethani Matek Sandes and Samantha Stosur of Australia.