Sixth seeds Rohan Bopanna and Florin Mergea’s run came to an end at the 2016 Monte Carlo Masters on Friday as the Indo-Romanian pair crashed out in the quarter-finals. Bopanna and Mergea could hardly put up any resistance and succumbed to a 2-6, 3-6 defeat to the fourth seeds Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares.
This is the second consecutive loss for the Indo-Romanian duo to the reigning Australian Open champions after having earlier surrendered to them in the Sydney final in January.
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Bopanna and Mergea, who had a terrific season last year, had been struggling of late and had arrived at this tournament on a four-match losing streak. Murray and Soares, on the other hand, have won two titles together this season and their recent success has catapulted the elder Murray brother to the doubles World No. 1 ranking.
With the two teams on the opposite ends of the spectrum, it was supposed to be a tough match-up for the sixth seeds. The British-Brazilian combine served a high 83% of first serves while Bopanna and Mergea could manage just 57% and that clearly made the difference.
They broke the lower seeds twice in each set to claim the victory in exactly 1 hour.
Bopanna and Mergea will try to get back some of their lost confidence as they now set their sights on the defence of their Madrid Masters crown.
