Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna won their respective doubles matches in contrasting styles to make it an all-win day for Indians at the Australian Open in Melbourne on Wednesday.
Sania and Australian partner Alicia Molik, seeded sixth, won a two-hour battle against the unseeded Greco-German pair of Eleni Daniilidou and Jasmin Woehr 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 to advance to the second round.
Bopanna teamed up with American-Indian Rajeev Ram to oust the British-American duo of James Auckland and Sam Querrey 6-1, 7-6(4).
Bopanna and Ram are next up against the winners of match between the fifth seeded Indian-Australian team of Leander Paes-Paul Hanley and unseeded Luis Horna of Peru and Austrian Stefan Koubek.
Sania and Molik, meanwhile, will take on Russians Nadia Petrova and Elena Vesnina, who breezed past local favourites Sophie Ferguson and Trudi Musgrave 6-3, 6-4.
Sania, who on Tuesday won her opening round singles encounter, and Molik were tested hard in the engrossing first-round clash.
The sixth seeds had no trouble pocketing the opening set in just over half an hour, capitalising on their opponents' poor serve and several unforced errors.
However, Sania and Molik were in for a shock in the second set as Daniilidou and Woehr broke them twice in the 40-minute contest to draw even and take the match into a third set.
The decider was also an even battle but Sania and Molik came out trumps after breaking their opponents thrice out of the six chances they got.
In contrast, Bopanna and Ram were in fine form as they held serve and broke Auckland and Querrey twice to take the opening set in just 25 minutes.
The second set was a bit more testing but Bopanna and Ram came through after their opponents failed to convert their chances.
