Rio de Janeiro, Aug 14 (IANS): The Indian duo of Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna went down fighting in the semi-finals of the mixed doubles tennis event to the United States team of Venus Williams and Rajeev Ram at the Rio Olympics here.
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The pair enjoyed a trophy-laden 16 months in women’s doubles tournaments after teaming up for the first time at the Indian Wells Open previous year.
“It is hard right now for me to look at a positive 10 minutes after after you lose such a big match, but we are looking forward to tomorrow and be fighting for that medal”, Sania said.
Although, after the first set ended, the pair of Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna found the counter attacking of Venus William and Rajeev Ram, too hot to handle. After their lightening start to 2016, winning their first four tournaments of the year, Hingis and Mirza have won just one title since. The big momentun shift took the wind out of the Indians.
Indian hopes are now riding on both Sania and Rohan to fetch a medal, preferably gold for the country.
Sania, who is already 29 and has recoverd from three career-threarening injuries, knows that it was her last and best chance to win an Olympic medal. The Indians were broken in their very first service game as the Czech pair utilised their first break point to take a 2-0 lead in the first set.
That lead stayed with the Indians and Bopanna sealed the issue on the third match point with an overhead smash.
The World No. 21 Indian pair never really looked in the hunt as they lost the first game in just 15 minutes before going down in 17 minutes in the second to the No. 5 Chinese do uat the fourth pavilion in Court No. 2.
The use of the “I” formation by the Indians, wherein the player on the net stands on the middle line and is thus able to dart to either side while the partner serves, followed up by penetrative lobs by Mirza did unsettle the rhythm of the Americans in the beginning.
However, the Indians immediately got the break back as Watosn dropped serve at love.
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Sania and Bopanna were a better team than the Britons, who never posed a threat to the Indians. While Puig beat back a strong challenge from Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic in three closely fought sets, the second seeded German cruised through in straight sets against the American Madison Keys.
