Bhupathi advances, Sania out of women's doubles at Indian Wells

On a mixed day for the India, Mahesh Bhupathi advanced to the men's doubles second round but Sania Mirza crashed out of the women's doubles event at the BNP Paribas Open yesterday.

Sania and her partner Chia-Jung Chuang of Taipei went down 1-6, 4-6 to the Argentine-Israeli team of Gisela Dulko and Shahar Peer in the opening round.

However, Sania is still in contention in the singles event and the Hyderabadi ace takes on 12th seed Italian Flavia Panetta after a hard-fought first round victory on Thursday.

In the men's doubles, the third seeded pair of Bhupathi and Bahamas' Mark Knowles edged past Russians Dmitry Tursunov and Igor Kunitsyn 7-5, 6-3 in the opening round.

In a contest that lasted over an hour, Bhupathi and Knowles had to toil in the opening set but they ultimately prevailed over their error-prone unseeded rivals.

In contrast, the second set was dominated by the Indo-Bahamian pair which broke Tursunov and Kunitsyn thrice before wrapping up the proceedings in their favour.

Fourth seeds Leander Paes and his Czech partner Lukas Dlouhy are still to open their campaign against unseeded Austrians Jurgen Melzer and Julian Knowle.