Melbourne: The Indian contingent had a disappointing day in the men’s and women’s doubles competitions of the Australian Open, getting knocked out in their respective second round matches at the Melbourne Park Friday.
But Sania Mirza won her opening round match in mixed doubles to keep the country’s challenge alive.
In the women’s doubles contest, Sania and Chinese Taiei’s Hsieh Su-wei lost 6-7 (5), 4-6 against Canadian Gabriela Dabrowski and Polish Alicja Rosolska. However, the 28-year-old partnered Brazilian Bruno Soares to defeat the mixed doubles pair of Hungarian Timea Babos and American Eric Butorac 6-1, 4-6, 7-6 (10-3) to advance to the second round.
The Indo-South African pair of Paes and Raven Klaasen lost 6-2, 4-6, 1-6 to Simone Bolelli and Fabio Fognini, while Bopanna and his Canadian partner Daniel Nestor went down 5-7, 3-6 to American Feliciano Lopez and Belarusian Max Mirnyi in the men’s doubles.
Paes-Klaasen started the match well, winning the first set and hit 29 winners but that wasn’t enough as Bolelli-Fognini outhit them with 31 winners. The Indo-South African pair made 21 unforced errors as compared to 22 by their opponents.
Bopanna-Nestor pair scored 25 winners as compared to 33 by Lopez-Mirnyi. The Indo-Canadian pair made 10 unforced errors against Lopez-Mirnyi, who made 12 unforced errors.
The Indo-Chinese Taipei pair of Sania and Su-Wei scored only 29 winners as compared to 45 fired by Dabrowski and Rosolska, who also made 23 unforced errors while Sania-Su-Wei did 18 unforced errors.
(IANS)
