Australian Open: Sania Mirza, Rajeev Ram cruise into mix doubles quarter-finals

Mix doubles team of India's Sania Mirza and USA's Rajeev Ram cruised into the quarter-finals of the Australian Open on Sunday. Playing at Court 3, the Indo-American pair defeated the duo of Matwe Middelkoopa from the Netherlands and Australian Ellen Perez in the second round. It took Mirza and Ram one hour and 27 minutes to defeat the Dutch-Aussie pair by 7-6(4), 6-4.

The wild-card duo who had defeated the third-seeds Robert Farah-Nicole Melichar in the previous round started the match at a good pace against Mirza and Ram. But Indo-American pair gained the upper hand after taking the first set in a critical tie-breaker. With momentum on their side, Mirza and Ram upped their ante and cruised to a straight-set win after they broke their opponents early in second.

The unseeded Sania Mirza - Rajeev Ram, both former Grand Slam champions, won the first-round match 6-3, 7-6(3). Both Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna were ousted from the women's and men's doubles, respectively, in the opening round.