Australian Open: Leander Paes, Rohan Bopanna make winning start

Melbourne [Australia], Jan 18 (ANI): The unseeded Indian pair of Leander Paes and Purav Raja kicked off their Australian Open campaign on a promising note by clinching a comfortable straight sets victory in the opening round of the men's doubles event here at the Melbourne Park on Thursday.

Paes and Raja stormed into the second round of the first major of the season by brushing aside Georgian-Austrian pair of Nikoloz Basilashvili and Andreas Haider-Maurer 6-2, 6-3 in a one-sided clash.

During the match, the Indian duo had won 90% of their first serve points besides converting all the break points.

Paes and Raja will now take on fifth-seed pair of Britain's Jamie Murray and Brazil's Bruno Soares.

Rohan Bopanna, another Indian in fray, also made a winning start to his campaign along with French partner Edouard Roger-Vasselin.

After the second set went into the tie-breaker, Bopanna and Roger-Vasselin eventually managed to prevail American-Canadian duo of Ryan Harrison and Vasek Pospisil 6-2, 7-6 (7-5) in a clash that lasted an hour and 12 minutes.

Bopanna and Roger-Vasselin will now face the winner of another men's doubles clash between Alex de Minaur-James Duckworth and Leonardo Mayer and Joao Sousa.(ANI)