The fourth-seeded Indo-Russian pair beat the 13th seeds 6-4, 6-3 in the third round of women’s doubles action here.
They will now take on Nuria Llagostera Vives and Arantxa Parra Santonja of Spain in the quarterfinals of the prestigious Grand Slam tournament.
Vives and Santonja defeated Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci of Italy 7-5, 6-4 in another third-round match.
Sania’s partner Elena has more reason to smile as she and Indian tennis star Mahesh Bhupathi, seeded fourth, beat Australians Stephen Huss and Anastasia Rodionova 6-2, 7-6 (7-3) to reach the third round in mixed doubles.
The 14th seeds, Leander Paes of India and Zimbabwe’s Cara Black, also reached the next round by getting the better of the Dutch-Polish team of Rogier Wassen and Alicja Rosolska 6-1, 6-4.
There wasn’t such good news for India number one Somdev Devvarman, whose campaign in the men’s doubles competition came to a grinding halt.
Somdev and Kei Nishikori of Japan were trounced in straight sets 3-6, 4-6, 6-7 (5-7) by the sixth-seeded duo of Michael Llodra of France and Nenad Zimonjic of Serbia.
Somdev had won through to the second round of the men’s singles draw, where he was halted in straight sets by Russian Mikhail Youzhny. Youzhny lost to Roger Federer in the pre-quarters on Monday.
Quarterfinal results (prefix denotes seeding): Women’s singles: 5-Maria Sharapova (Rus) bt 24-Dominika Cibulkova (Slv) 6-1, 6-1; Sabine Lisicki (Ger) bt 9-Marion Bartoli (Fra) 6-4, 6-7 (7-4), 6-1.
