Wimbledon 2016 | Bopanna and Mergea off to a winning start
Sixth seeded pair Rohan Bopanna and Florin Mergea started their 2016 Wimbledon Championship campaign on Friday with a straight set win over the unseeded Croatian pair of Nikola Mektic and Marin Draganja. The Indo-Romanian pair won 7-5, 7-6 (8-6) in a rain delayed game, which lasted 80 minutes.
Last year, Rohan Bopanna and Florin Mergea were knocked out in the semifinal of the Wimbledon after a marathon 5-set encounter against Jean-Julien Rojer and Horia Tecau. This time, they would look to go one better, and they are heading into the tournament on the back of their quarterfinal exit at the French Open.
The first round encounter between Bopanna/Mergea and Mektic/Draganja was the first meeting between the two pairs and the sixth seeds were the clear favourites.
The relatively inexperienced Croatian pair held their own against Bopanna and Mergea, and it was not till the 11th game of the first set that the Indo-Romanian pair received a chance to break their opponent's serve, which they grabbed with both their hands. Eventually, Bopanna and Mergea won the first set 7-5 and headed into the second game with their tails up.
The second set went down to the wire as well as Mektiuc and Draganja did not gave Bopanna-Mergea an inch. In the end, it came down to a tie-breaker, which the 6th seeds won 8-6, after trailing 2-4 in the initial stages. Bopanna and Mergea will now face Chile-Slovakian pair of Hans Podlipnik-Castillo and Andrej Martin in their second round clash.
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