Florida: Sania Mirza and her Chinese Taipei partner Chia-Jung Chuang reached the doubles quarter finals of the $220,000 MPS Group Championships here on Wednesday.

The Indo-Taipei pair had to fight it out in a marathon three-setter to down Melinda Czink of Hungary and Lilia Osterloh of America 6-0, 3-6, 10-5 in the first round.

Sania and Chuang will meet the fourth-seeded pair of Bethanie Mattek-Sands of America and Nadia Petrova of Russia in the next round.

Sania’s campaign in the singles came to a premature end with a straight sets defeat at the hands of seventh seed Alona Bondarenko in the opening round.

Top seed Nadia Petrova beat 14-year-old American Madison Keys 6-3, 6-2 in the singles second round. Petrova, ranked No. 10 in the world, won nine of the last 11 games to beat Keys, who was playing in her first WTA Tour event in the season-opening clay court tournament.

“At the beginning of the match, I didn’t know what to expect,” the Russian said. “She caught me by surprise.”

The match was tied 3-3 in the first set before Petrova won three straight games. “I had to make some adjustments,” she said.

Petrova advanced to a quarter final match against Alona. Alona won 11 of the last 15 games to beat her younger sister, Kateryna, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 earlier in the day.

The 24-year-old Alona, two years older, fell behind 3-1 in the second set. She rallied to break serve throughout the set, which included a 13-deuce and nine-deuce game and lasted 54 minutes.

“We have different styles, but we know each other well,” Alona said. “I have to play the long points and she doesn’t.”

The Ukrainians traded games early in the third set and were tied at 3-3 before Alona broke twice and won the final three games. Alona’s win tied the sisters’ series at 3-3. They last met in 2006.

In other matches, third-seeded Dominka Cibulkova of Slovakia defeated Anastasia Rodionova of Russia 6-1, 6-3. Cibulkova will meet Elena Vesnina of Russia, who defeated Patricia Mayr of Austria 1-6, 6-3, 6-2. (AP)