US Open | Sania advances, Paes out, while Nadal, Djokovic, Kerber win

09/03/2016

Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna won their respective mixed doubles matches, while the men's doubles saw Bopanna and Leander Paes lose their respective matches. Defending champ Novak Djokovic walked into the fourth round, while Women's World No. 2 Angelique Kerber completed a rout in her third round.

Indian

Top seeds in the mixed doubles event, Sania Mirza and Ivan Dodig, completed a straight-sets victory of 6-4, 6-4 over Taylor Townsend and Donald Young of the United States to enter the second round of the mixed doubles event. Mirza and Dodig fired in 5 aces to their opponents' 1 ace as they wrapped up the match in just over an hour.

Rohan Bopanna, who labored through his men's doubles first round earlier, had similar luck today in the mixed doubles event with his Canadian partner Gabriela Dabrowski in the match against USA's Noah Rubin and Jamie Loeb. The Indo-Canadian pair won the match 7-5, 6-4 eventually to enter Round 2 of the Championship.

However, in the men's doubles event, both the Indians bowed to an early exit out of the US Open. Leander Paes and Andre Begemann won their first set easily against Stephane Robert and Dudi Sela with a 6-2 margin. But in two marathon sets that lasted 52 and 42 minutes each, Paes and Begemann lost 7-5 and 6-4 to crash out in the first round.

Rohan Bopanna and his Danish partner Frederik Nielsen lost 2-6, 6-7 to the pair of Brian Baker and Marcus Daniell.

International

Novak Djokovic had another stroll in the park in the third round of the men's singles event after receiving a walkover in the second round. The Serb was leading 4-2 when his opponent Mikhail Youzhny retired from the event with a left leg injury.

Djokovic expressed mixed feelings about the match as he has missed some crucial match practice although the easy outings could reduce the toll of the early rounds on him.

“I don’t think I’ve ever had this situation – a second round walkover and 30 minutes only in the third round. Obviously I wish Mikhail a speedy recovery – he carried the injury into this match, that’s what he said.”

“I’ll try to get the positives out of these six games. I started well with good intensity so I’ll try to carry that into the next match,” said Djokovic.

Rafael Nadal romped to a straight-set 6-1, 6-4, 6-2 win over Andrey Kuznetsov to go into the fourth round of the US Open.

However, in-form and title contender Marin Cilic had a shock exit from the event after losing to Jack Sock in straight sets. Cilic, at no point troubled the American, whose limited but powerful game took him through in windy conditions.

“He’s a very dangerous guy in these kind of conditions,” Cilic said, “where the ball is coming off pretty fast, off the court,” after his disappointing exit.

World No.2 Angelique Kerber went past 17-year old Cici Bellis into the fourth round with a 6-1, 6-1 win. The German took five set points to win the first set, but eventually ensured she did not have to sweat too much before wrapping up the next.

Caroline Wozniacki also won her third round encounter winning against Monica Niculescu 6-3, 6-1 to march into the fourth round of the US Open.