On a largely disappointing day for Indian tennis players, Leander Paes, Rohan Bopanna and Sania Mirza lost their respective doubles matches in the second round of the Australian Open, leaving the country's challenge restricted to the mixed doubles competition.
Sania, who recently reached a career-best doubles ranking of No. 5 for the second time, and her Chinese Taipei partner Su-Wei Hsieh were stunned by the unseeded Canadian-Polish pair of Gabriela Dabrowski and Alicja Rosolska 6-7, 4-6.
Sania, though, restored some pride in the mixed doubles when she combined with Bruno Soares of Brazil. The top-seeded pair dispatched Timea Babos and Eric Butorac in double quick time, winning 6-1, 4-6 [10-3].
Bopanna and Daniel Nestor were outplayed in their second-round men's doubles match by Feliciano Lopez and Max Mirnyi before losing 5-7, 3-6.
Paes and South African partner Raven Klaasen went down to Simone Bolelli and Fabio Fognini 6-2, 4-6, 1-6.
Earlier, the second-seeded Sania and Hsieh, who had an easy first round against the Argentine-Swiss combine of Maria Irigoyen and Romina Oprandi, were up against a resilient Gabriela and Alicja this time around.
After fighting hard for the first set they went down in the tie-break after an intense 58-minute battle.
Their relatively inexperienced opponents then gained confidence in the second set to comfortably dispatch the much fancied pair.
Paes, though, did put up a good show along with Klaasen, but the tenth-seeded duo went down to the Italian pair after winning the first set.
The Indo-Austrian pair of Mahesh Bhupathi and Jurgen Melzer had earlier lost to Diego Schwartzman and Horacio Zeballos 4-6, 3-6 on Thursday.
In the mixed doubles draw, Bhupathi has teamed up with Jarmila Gajdosova of Australia, Bopanna combines with Czech Republic partner B Zahlavova Strycova and Paes will partner Martina Hingis.
