Indian tennis stars Sania Mirza, Leander Paes and Rohan Bopanna made a rampaging start at the US Open by advancing to the second round at the Flushing Meadows in NY.
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Seventh seeds Sania Mirza and her Czech partner Barbora Strycova defeated unseeded American pairing of Jada Myii Hart and Ena Shibahara 6-2, 6-3 in a fairly comfortable fashion in women’s doubles.
Leander Paes and his mixed doubles partner Martina Hingis had a stroll in the park as they ran through the American duo of Sachia Vickery and Frances Tiafoe in just 51 minutes.
Bopanna and his Canadian partner Gabriela Dabrowski defeated Lukasz Kubot and Andrea Hlavackova 5-7, 6-3, 10-7 to move into the quarterfinals. They converted four out of eight break points won, while their opponents only won 2 from 9, which ultimately created the difference among two teams.
Fifth seed Milos Raonic of Canada, who was predicted to be one of the title contenders, crashed out of the Open after losing to American qualifier and world number 120 Ryan Harrison 7-6 (4), 5-7, 5-7, 1-6.
Bopanna-Nielsen relinquished grip on the first in just 30 minutes at Court 6.
They maintained their ascendancy in the second set too another quick break of serve to jump to a 4-2 lead.
The Indo-Croatian player need an hour and two minutes to advance to the next round, winning 67 of the total 118 total points played.
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The 7th seeded pair will now meet unseeded Nicole Gibbs and Nao Hibino next. Stepanek-Zimonjic employed all kind of tactics to claim the second set in a tie-break to level the match.
