India’s tennis stars Leander Paes and Rohan Bopanna stormed into the quarter-finals of their respective men’s doubles events while Sania Mirza and her Swiss partner Martina Hingis were knocked out of the women’s doubles in the French Open here on Sunday.
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Meanwhile, American Madison Brengle and Tatjana Maria earned the biggest upset thus far when they took out Spanish pair and No.13 seeds Anabel Medina Garrigues and Arantxa Parra Santonja, 6-2, 6-3.
Bopanna and his mixed doubles partner Kudryavtseva got the match off to a positive start by breaking their opponent twice to take the opening set 6-2 but Murray and Hao-Ching came back strongly in the second set by breaking them twice to win the second set 6-3 and level things up.
Sania and Hingis are aiming to be the first team to hold all four majors simultaneously since Serena and Venus Williams in 2010. From there on it was an easy task for the Indo-Romanian duo to clinch the first set 6-2.
Hingis and Mirza were left fuming at the umpire after a call went against them as they trailed 4-1 in the second set. They had skipped French Open. They had won Wimbledon and US Open doubles titles in 2015 and the Australian Open in 2016, the season’s first Grand Slam in January.
Paes-Hingis won 17 out of 25 first serve points and three out of six second serve points in the second set.
Bopanna and Mergea will next face the winners of the match between third seeds Ivan Dodig and Marcelo Melo and Chris Guccione and Andre Sa.
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In another match, Paes and his Polish partner converted one break chance that they got in the opening set, while Soares and Murray could make use of just one of the five breakpoints that they got.
