India's biggest medal hopes, and now the only hopes, in tennis - Sania Mirza and Leander Paes - made an encouraging start as they motored past Nenad Zimonjic and Ana Ivanovic in the mixed doubles opener on Thursday, says a report in Hindustan Times, adding that the Indian duo took only an hour and four minutes to pack off the Serbs 6-2 6-4.
Fired up after a close defeat to French pair of Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Michael Llodra in the men's doubles second round on Wednesday night, Paes took command at the net and let those quick hands script all the moves.
Meanwhile The DNA reports that Leander Paes and Sania Mirza defeated Serbian pair of Nenad Zimonjic and Ana Ivanovic in staright sets to enter the mixed doubles quarter-final of the Olympic Games, here on Thursday.
“Paes-Sania beat the Serbian pair 6-2 6-4 in only 64 minutes to set up a last eight clash with top seeds Max Mirnyi and Victoria Azarenka from Belarus. The Indian pair dominated the proceedings from the start as they first broke opponent's serve in the third game but the Serbians broke back to get scores levelled at 2-2,” says the report, adding that however both Zimonjic and Ivanovic's serve was broken once each in the fifth and seventh game of the first set respectively before the winners closed out the set at 6-2.
The first set was played for merely 26 minutes. Paes-Mirza got an all-important break in the very first game of the second set and then held their serves to win the match in the 10th game.
