Dubai, Feb 18 (PTI) Indian tennis ace Sania Mirza and her partner Caroline Garcia registered a hard-fought win over Russia's Alla Kudryavtseva and Slovenia's Katarina Srebotnik to advance to the women's doubles pre-quarterfinals at the Dubai Open here on Tuesday.

The Indo-French pair beat their Russian opponents 6-4, 4-6, 10-8 in the first round match.

The Sania-Garcia combine will now meet the fifth seeded duo of Saisai Zheng of China and Barbora Krejcikova of Czech Republic in the round of 16.

The 33-year-old Sania was returning to action at the Dubai Open after recovering from a calf injury which had cut short her campaign at the Australian Open in January.

Sania's first Grand Slam outing after a two-year maternity leave had ended with an early exit when the Indian ace retired mid-way during her doubles first-round match because of a right calf injury.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)