Bopanna-Mergea enter second round at Wimbledon

Doubles partners Florin Mergea (L) and Rohan Bopanna

Wimbledon, June 29 (IANS) The Indo-Romanian tennis pair of Rohan Bopanna and Florin Mergea earned a straight sets victory in the men's doubles first round to enter the second round of the Wimbledon Championship on the grass courts here on Monday.

Ninth seeds Bopanna and Mergea outclassed American-Czech pair of Tim Smyczek and Jiri Vesely 6-3, 7-6 (1), 6-1 in one hour and 26 minutes.

Bopanna and Mergea started their campaign on a positive note, winning 16 out of 20 first serve points. Three aces from them hurt the opponents and enabled them to take home the first set easily, 6-3.

Smyczek-Vesely came back strongly into the second set, but the second seeds were good enough force the set to the tie-break.

Bopanna-Mergea played brilliantly to win the tie-break 7-1 and go two sets up.

The third set saw an ever better performance from Bopanna-Mergea.

Winning 12 out of 13 first serve points and two break points made life difficult for the American-Czech pair to return to the match. Finally, two aces sealed the match for Indian-Romanian pair and booked a place in the second round.

Bopanna-Mergea will next face the winner of the match between Radek Stepanek-Mikhail Youzhny and Thomaz Bellucci-Guillermo Duran.