Wimbledon: Paes-Hingis storm into mixed doubles quarters

London: Leander Paes and Martina Hingis breezed into the mixed doubles quarterfinals at the Wimbledon Championships after drubbing Artem Sitak and Anastasia Rodionova in straight sets, here today.

The seventh seeded Indo-Swiss pair needed only 48 minutes to thrash the Kiwi-Australian team 6-2 6-2 in the third round of the Grass Court Grand Slam tournament.

Paes and Hingis are the first team to seal a last-eight berth in the mixed doubles.

Paes and Hingis, who are multiple Grand Slam winners, did not face a single break point in the match and broke their rivals twice in each set. They won 56 points to 34 of Sitak and Rodionova.

Paes and Hingis started their pre-quarters match on an aggressive note, winning 12 out of 16 first serve points and later on converted two break point opportunities out of five to claim the first set 6-2.

They then upped the ante in the second set to break their opponents once and denied Sitak-Rodionova any chance of breaking back. Paes-Hingis also won 13 of the 15 first serve points of the set.

The Indo-Swiss pair next faces the winner of the match between Marcin Matkowski-Elena Vesnina and Lukasz Kubot-Andrea Hlavackova to book a place in the semi-finals.

Later in the day, Sania Mirza will also look to seal a quarterfinal berth in the mixed doubles with her Brazilian partner Bruno Soares. They face Croatian pair of Marin Draganja and Ana Konjuh.

Rohan Bopanna and Florin Mergea have their task cut out as they will fight it out against top seeds Mike and Bon Bryan for a place in the semifinals.

In the junior championship, 15th seed Pranjala Yadlapalli will take on American Michaela Gordon in the girls singles second round.

Sumit Nagal, who lost in the boys singles first round, will pair with Vietnam's Nam Hoang Ly in the boys doubles opener against Alex De Minaur of Australia and Yosuke Watanuki of Japan.