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Bhupathi-Bopanna makes a winning start, Sania-Elena loses

March 25, 2012 14:34 IST

Indian pair of Mahesh Bhupathi and Rohan Bopanna made it to the second round of the Miami Masters after getting the better of Austria's Jurgen Melzer and Briton Jamie Murray in Miami.

The sixth seeded Indian duo overcame their opponents 7-5, 6-3 in the opening round of the $3,973,050 hard-court event in little over an hour.

Bhupathi and Bopanna saved all the three breakpoints that Melzer and Murray got, while converted two of the six chances they themselves got.

The Indian combo also managed to win a total of 63 points as compared to 49 won by their Austrian-British pair.

Bhupathi and Bopanna will now take on Spaniards Marcel Granollers and Rafael Nadal.

Meanwhile, Sania Mirza and her Russian partner Elena Vesnina lost to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia and Czech Republic's Lucie Safarova 6-1, 1-6, 9-11 in the first round.

Pavlyuchenkova and Safarova took an hour and six minutes to down Sania-Vesnina.

The third seeded Indo-Russian pair did well to win the first set but Czech-Russian combo saved as many as six out of the nine breakpoints to push the former on to the back foot.

Earlier, Leander Paes and his Czech partner Radek Stepanek also crossed the first round hurdle after defeating Marcos Baghdatis and Sam Querrey.

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