Australian Open 2022 | Saina Mirza and Rohan Bopanna eliminated in round 1
Saina Mirza and Rohan Bopanna eliminated in round 1
|IPTL
On the first day of the Australian Open 2022, which is going on in Melbourne, both Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna from India were eliminated in the first round, in the women's and men's doubles, respectively. Both Indian tennis players still have mixed doubles to contend for at the Australian Open.
Sania Mirza and her doubles partner Nadiia Kichenok from Ukraine seeded 12th, were defeated 6-4, 7-6 by Kaja Juvan and Tamara Zidansek, an unseeded Slovenian pair, in one hour and 36 minutes. In the fifth game of the opening set, the Indo-Ukrainian duo had three break points but were unable to convert any of them. Mirza and Kichenok were subsequently broken in the eighth game to go down 5-3, and although breaking back to tie the game at 5-4, they dropped service again in the following game to lose the set.
The duo did take a 4-3 lead in the second set after breaking through in the seventh game but Juvan/Zidansek managed to break them back after leading 5-4 and served for the set. The match finally went to a tiebreak and the result went in favour of Juvan/Zidansek.
Meanwhile, in the men's doubles, Rohan Bopanna and Frenchman Edouard Roger-Vasselin were a setup but fell 6-3, 6-7, 2-6 against Treat Huey and Christopher Rungkat of the Philippines and Indonesia. The unseeded Bopanna/Roger-Vasselin broke their opponents' serve in the fourth game and went on to capture the opening set after a comfortable hold of serve in the first two games.
In the second set, neither couple broke serve as they fought firmly, with Huey-Rungkat finally claiming the tiebreaker to force a third set. The veterans Bopanna/Roger-Vasselin appeared to be losing steam in the third set, as they were broken twice - in the third and fifth games. Huey/Rungkat were able to hold their serves for an hour and 48 minutes to win the match.
Both Indian tennis players, on the other hand, still have mixed doubles to contend for at the Australian Open. Sania Mirza will play alongside fellow Grand Slam winner Rajeev Ram of the United States, while Rohan Bopanna will play with Croatian Darija Jurak Schreiber.
