Sania-Bhupathi wins Australian mix doubles

Indian tennis pair Sania Mirza and Mahesh Bhupathi registered a historic win defeating the French/Israeli duo Nathalie Dechy and Andy Ram in straight sets 6-3, 6-1 at the Australian Open 2009 mixed doubles final in Melbourne on Sunday.

With this, Mirza became the first Indian woman to win a senior grand slam event, while for Bhupathi it was his 7th grand slam mixed doubles title playing with different partners, and 11th in total.

After coming across a tough match in the quarterfinals, the Indian pair beat Czechs Iveta Benesova and Lukas Dlouhy in the semi-finals to reach the Australian open final for the second consecutive year.

Beside winning four men’s doubles title (1999-French Open, 1999-Wimbledon, 2001-French Open, 2002-US Open), Bhupathi had won all four major mixed doubles grand slam events: once French Open (1997), twice US Open (1999, 2005), twice Wimbledon (2002, 2005) and twice Australian Open (2006, 2009).

His last mixed doubles Grand Slam was too in the Australian Open in 2006 when he teamed up with Swiss Martina Hingis. They had defeated the Daniel Nestor and Elena Likhovtseva in straight sets 6-3, 6-3.

However, Bhupathi lost to Bryan twins - Bob and Mike - in Saturday’s men’s doubles final playing with Mark Knowles of the Bahamas.