The 21-year-old overcame Swiss qualifier Timea Bacsinszky 6-1, 4-6, 7-5 to reach the last 32 and a match against Venus Williams, and said she was proud she had been able to focus on her tennis.

“I am very pleased by winning a match like this today because a lot has been happening in the last couple of weeks off the court,” Mirza said.

Mirza is the subject of a court summons in Bhopal. The controversy surrounds a photograph taken at the Hopman Cup mixed team event in Perth, played at the beginning of the year, that appeared to show Mirza’s bare feet resting near the national flag.

Mirza said she was looking forward to a meeting with Williams, having played her sister, Serena, at the same stage in Melbourne three years ago, when she became the first Indian woman to reach the third round of a Grand Slam event.

“I am very excited to play Venus,” she said.

“I have nothing to lose and feel like I am playing well. I want to try to get a good start.”

Paes, Bhupathi win

Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi fought off strong resistance from their opponents to win their respective doubles first-round matches in straight sets.

Paes and his Australian partner Paul Hanley, seeded fifth, had to dig deep to their vast reserve of experience to down the duo of Luis Horna of Peru and Stefan Koubek of Austria 7-6 (2), 7-6 (5) in a see-saw battle lasting one hour and 48 minutes.

In the second round, Paes-Hanley will meet the Indo-American duo of Rohan Bopanna and Rajeev Ram who beat British-American combine of James Auckland and Sam Querrey on Wednesday.

Sixth-seeded Bhupathi and Mark Knowles of Bahamas were also stretched to the limit in the first set. However, they broke their opponents’ serve once in the second set to register a 7-6 (10), 6-4 victory over Russian-German pair of Mikhail Youzhny and Mischa Zverev in a one hour 39 minutes contest.

The Indo-Bahamian pair now runs into the Swiss-Belgian duo of Yves Allegro and Kristof Vliegen who had beaten Israel’s Harel Levy and Dudi Sela in the first round.