Wimbledon 2016 | SanTina advance to quarters; Bopanna has mixed bag

Arun S Kaimal
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Reigning champions Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis registered a one-sided win in the third round of the women’s doubles event. Meanwhile, Rohan Bopanna had mixed luck, crashing out of the men's doubles event, but advanced to the third round in the mixed doubles event along with Anastasia Rodionova.

The World No.1 doubles pair of Mirza and Hingis eased past the unseeded pair of Christina McHale and Jelena Ostapenko 6-1, 6-0 in 46 minutes to confirm their place in the last-8.

The Indo-Swiss pair broke their opponents twice in the first set and won 82 percent of points on the second serve to take it 6-1. The pair from Latvia and the United States of America looked out of sorts against the top seeds and surrendered the second set without even winning a game after committing three double faults and three unforced errors.

However, in the men’s doubles it proved be another disappointing day for India. After knocking out Leander Paes and Marcin Matkowski yesterday in the second round, John Peers and Henri Kontinen ended another Indian’s run in the tournament, this time knocking out sixth-seeded Rohan Bopanna and Florin Mergea 6-2, 3-6, 4-6, 7-6 (8-6), 6-8. The Indo-Romanian pair, who made it to the quarter-finals last year, went into the match hoping for the same, but after a marathon match that lasted for almost three hours, Bopanna and Mergea exited the tournament.

The sixth seeds started the match on a positive note by winning the first set 6-2. But the tenth seeds bounced back in the second set by winning it 6-3 with Bopanna and Mergea committing two double faults to help their rivals. Although the tenth seeds made five unforced errors in the third game, Bopanna and Mergea failed to capitalize on it and surrendered it 4-6 to give them the lead. Bopanna and Mergea prevailed in the tiebreaker 8-6 to win the fourth set 7-6 to set up a final tie-breaking set. However, the sixth seeds ended up on the wrong side of a similar scoreline to crash out of the tournament.

However, Bopanna made amends for the loss with a straight-sets win in the mixed doubles event. Bopanna and Anastasia Rodionova defeated Treat Huey and Alicja Rosolska 6-3, 7-5 to advance to the third round.

Leander Paes, who had crashed out of the men's doubles event, also had better luck in the mixed doubles. Paes and Martina Hingis defeated Artem Sitak and Laura Siegemund 6-4 6-4 to reach the third round.

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