Sania-Eva knocked out of French Open

PARIS: Sania Mirza and her Czech partner Eva Birnerova lost to the top seeded pair of Lisa Raymond of the US and Australian Samantha Stosur in the first round of the women's doubles of the French Open tennis tournament.

The Indo-Czech pair proved no match for the American-Australian duo and went down 6-1, 6-2 here on Thursday. Earlier in the day, Sania also crashed out of the singles event as well after she lost to seventh seed Anna Ivanovic of Serbia.

Mahesh Bhupathi, however kept the Indian flag flying high after he and his Czech partner Radek Stepnak sailed into the second round of the men's doubles event with a facile 6-4, 6-0 win over 12th seed Polish duo Mariusz Fyrstenberg and Marcin Matkowski in the first round.

Bhupathi and Stepanek were broken twice in the first set but they still managed to win it, thanks to a few mistakes committed by the Polish pair.

In the second set, the Indo-Czech pair had an easy run and held on to their serves and broke Fyrstenberg and Matkowski thrice to win the match that lasted little over an hour.

Bhuapthi and Stepanek will take on Guillermo Garcia-Lopez of Spain and Filippo Volandri of Italy in the second round.

Sania will pair with Frenchman Fabrice Santoro in the mixed doubles on Friday, where she will face the German pair of Anna-Lena Groenefeld and Alexander Waske.