Indian tennis star Sania Mirza and her doubles partner Kirsten Flipkens of Belgium registered a straight sets victory over Naomi Osaka and Shuai Zhan to advance to the second round of Wimbledon on Thursday. It was a cake walk for the Indo-Belgian pair as they outplayed their Janapese-Chinese opponents 6-4, 6-3 in an hour and 12 minutes at Court 11.
The 13th seeded pair will now take on the winner of the match between the of Naomi Broady-Heather Watson and Katie Dunne-Harriet Dart of Britain in the second round.
In the men's doubles category, India's Rohan Bopanna and his doubles partner Edgar Roger-Vesselin also advanced to the second round after defeating German pair of Mischa Zverev and Dustin Brown 6-3, 7-6 (4), 6-4. Whereas, Purav Raja and Divij Sharan also began their Wimbledon campaign on a positive note as they defeated the British-Portuguese pair of Kyle Edmunds and Joao Sousa 7-6(2), 3-6, 6-4, 7-6(8).
Whereas, Veteran Leander Paes' 23rd appearance at the Wimbledon Championships ended with a first-round defeat in a gruelling five-setter against Julian Knowle and Philipp Oswald.
The duo of Paes and Adil Shamasdin lost 6-4 6-4 2-6 6-7(2) 8-10 to its Austrian rivals in the first round, which was just one minute short of four hours.
In a long-drawn fifth set, Paes and his Canadian partner lost serve at 8-8 and their rivals grabbed the opportunity to serve out the match in the next game.
Paes and Shamasdin have won two Challenger level titles together in the 2017 season.
