PARIS: The Indian-Australia pair of Rohan Bopanna and Matthew Ebden advanced to the pre-quarters of the ongoing US Open with a win over the Spanish-Argentina pair of Roberto Carballes Baena and Federico Coria.
The Indo-Australian pair registered win in straight sets by 6-2, 6-4 within 60 minutes at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.
Bopanna along with Ebden, who secured the Paris 2024 Olympics men’s doubles gold with John Peers, started off the first set with a flourish and earned a break in the first game itself. Their opponents were broken again in the fifth game. Bopanna and Ebden took the first set very easily, as per the Olympics.com.
Baena and Coria were more composed in the second set and managed to hold onto their serves before losing their break point in game seven. Bopanna and Ebden gained the upper hand after this, winning two more games easily to win the match.
The current Australian Open champions will be playing the Argentina duo of Andres Molteni and Maximo Gonzalez in their round of 16 clash.
On Friday, Bopanna also played with his mixed doubles partner Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia in the first round, winning the clash by 7-6, 7-6 against the Dutch-German duo of Demi Schuurs and Tim Putz in 98 minutes.
The match was a close affair. In the first set, Bopanna and his partner managed to hold their serves till 6-6 points and secured a 9-7 win in the tie-breaker to win the first set.
The second set also reached a tie-breaker and the Indo-Indonesian pair held their calm to win the tie-breaker 7-5 and win the game.
The next challenge for Bopanna in the mixed doubles competition will be Australia’s John Peers and Czech Republic’s Katerina Siniakova in the round of 16.
Earlier, N Sriram Balaji and his Argentinian partner Guido Andreozzi lost the second-round men’s doubles match 6-7, 6-4 to the eight-seeded duo of Michael Venus of New Zealand and British tennis player Neal Skupski.
India’s Yuki Bhambri and French player Albano Olivetti secured an impressive 4-6, 6-3, 7-5 win over the 15th-seeded duo of Austin Krajicek, a former world No. 1, and Jean-Julien Rojer. (ANI)