New Delhi: Sania Mirza made a flying start to her US Open 2017 women’s doubles campaign when she paired up with Peng Shuai to beat Petra Martic and Donna Vekic 6-4, 6-1 in an easy Round 1 encounter. Sania and her Chinese partner are seeded fourth and were always going to be favourites to win against the unseeded Croatian pair.
Sania has enjoyed success at the US Open in the past when she won the women’s doubles title in 2015. She has also scooped a mixed doubles title in New York before. This was a year before in 2014.
With the win, Mirza and Shuai have now set up a clash against the Slovakian team of Magdalena Rybarikova and Jana Cepelova in the second round.
Last month, Mirza and Peng, who had joined forces at the beginning of the US Open Series, had made it to the semi-finals of the 2017 Western and Southern Open in Cincinnati before slumping to a straight-sets defeat at the hands of Taiwanese-Romanian pair of Hsieh Su-wei and Monica Niculescu.
Meanwhile, Sania and her mixed doubles partner Ivan Dodig of Croatia will square off with the Latvian-French pair of Jelena Ostapenko and Fabrice Martin tomorrow.