Barcelona Open: Bopanna and Rojer knocked out in Quarters
Rohan Bopanna and his new doubles partner Jean-Julien Rojer have been knocked out of the Barcelona Open after losing their quarterfinal tie against the unseeded pair of Treat Huey and Max Mirnyi 6-7, 4-6. Bopanna-Rojer lost the first set tie-breaker and failed to recover from that in the second.
After losing the first set, despite serving better, the Indo-Dutch pair were broken early in the second set. The deficit remained for the rest of the set as, despite their most valiant efforts, they failed to bring the match back on serve. Earlier, Bopanna and Rojer had defeated Spanish wild cards Pablo Carreno Busta and David Marrero 7-5, 6-3 in the last round to reach the quarters.
Rojer is Bopanna's 70th doubles partner in his career, and they will hope to build-up their chemistry ahead of the next Grand Slam, the French Open, which starts in the middle of May. Bopannaās previous partner Florin Mergea had earlier decided to partner up with fellow Romanian Horia TecÄu to prepare for the Rio Olympics. As a result, Bopanna chose to team up with Horia TecÄuās doubles partner Jean-Julien Rojer for the 2016 Barcelona Open. Although this new partnership did not go on to win the trophy, it had a promising start and the pair will be hoping for better ventures in the future.