There was no stopping the defending champions Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis as they booked their places in the quarter-finals of the 2016 Wimbledon Championships on Monday. But India’s challenge came to an end in the men’s doubles event as the sixth seeds Rohan Bopanna and Florin Mergea crashed out in the second round.
Bopanna had much better fortunes in mixed doubles, though, where both he and Leander Paes won their respective matches.
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Team Santina drops just one game
The top-seeded women’s doubles team of Mirza and Hingis hardly broke a sweat in their third round encounter against the American-Latvian duo of Christina McHale and Jelena Ostapenko. The Indo-Swiss pair needed just 46 minutes to dispatch the young combine 6-1, 6-0.
Up next for them is the winner of the contest between the fifth seeds Yaroslava Shvedova and Timea Babos and the unseeded pair of Johanna Konta and Maria Sanchez.
Heartbreaking loss for Bopanna
Bopanna and Mergea, who reached last year’s semi-finals, suffered a heartbreaking five-set loss to the 10th seeds Henri Kontinen and John Peers. The Indo-Romanian duo saved four match points in the fourth set but could not get the win in the end as they went down 6-2, 3-6, 4-6, 7-6(6), 6-8 in 2 hours 55 minutes.
Good day for India in mixed doubles
Defending champions and 16th seeds Leander Paes and Martina Hingis started their quest for a second title on a grand note as they overcame the challenge of Artem Sitak and Laura Siegemund, 6-4, 6-4. The match involved four breaks of serve.
Bopanna too joined Paes in the pre-quarter-finals after he and Anastasia Rodionova – seeded 13th – beat Treat Huey and Alicja Rosolska, 6-3, 7-5.
