Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna lost the bronze medal match in mixed doubles tennis to the Czech pairing of Radek Stepanek and Lucie Hradecka 1-6 5-7 on Sunday at the 2016 Olympics.
Advertisement
Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna have suddenly become India’s biggest medal hopes in Rio with their comfortable 6-4 6-4 win over British pair of Heather Watson and Andy Murray.
Rio de Janeiro, August 13: Boxer Vikas Krishan Yadav and tennis stars Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna brought some much needed cheer as the Indian contingent continued their flop show at the ongoing 31st Olympic Games here.
The tennis mixed doubles pair of Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna will take on the USA pair of Venus Williams and Rajeev Ram tonight at 11:30 IST in the semi finals at the Rio Olympics.
The Indian pair still has a shot at the bronze medal for which they will now play losers in the of the encounter between Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Jack Sock of the U.S. versus Lucie Hradecka and Radek Stepanek of the Czech Republic. Sania served very well yesterday and today and we returned extremely well, putting a lot of pressure on their serves.
Ram and Venus made a strong comeback and left the Indian’s duo to re-think their strategies.
For the Russian duo, the gold medal comes on top of their two Grand Slam titles together at the 2013 French Open and 2014 US Open.
Lalita, in fact, finished with the seventh-best time in the heats by clipping almost seven seconds off the existing national mark standing in the name of Sudha (9:26.55), clocked in Shanghai in May.
The start of their second set was hardly ideal.
In the opening set, Bopanna’s first game was taken to deuce by the Americans before the Indian produced his first ace of the match to hold his serve.
However, after Stosur was broken in the 11th game, Sania served out the set.
Advertisement
Once they took control, the Indian pair dictated the flow of the contest. Although, after the first set Sania and Bopanna finds it too hot to handle the counter-attacking of the Venu. While the two won the first set, they lost the second and later on the tie-breaker in a close fight and failed to proceed any further. Williams unleashed her best in the second set to unseat the Indians.
