The Indian doubles players at the 2016 French Open had a hugely successful day on Friday as each of Sania Mirza, Leander Paes and Rohan Bopanna registered straight-sets wins to enter the third rounds of their respective doubles categories.
The top-seeded women’s doubles pair of Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis looks more and more menacing as they keep getting closer to a chance of completing the much-coveted Non-Calendar Year Grand Slam. The Wimbledon, US Open and Australian Open titlists brushed aside the Japanese duo of Nao Hibino and Eri Hozumi, 6-2, 6-0.
The Indo-Swiss pair was in immaculate form and was hardly bothered by the Japanese team. They surged to a 4-1 lead before closing out the first set 6-2 after a long eighth game. With the opening set already in the pocket, the top-ranked pair looked even more confident and raced ahead to 3-0, riding on Mirza’s blistering forehands.
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Their opponents failed to give any resistance as the top seeds won the next three games as well to complete the victory in 54 minutes.
Confidence-boosting wins for Indians in men’s doubles
In men’s doubles, the sixth seeds Rohan Bopanna and Florin Mergea earned their entry into the third round courtesy of a 6-3, 6-4 triumph over the French combine of Gregoire Barrere and Quentin Halys. The 16th seeds Leander Paes and Marcin Matkowski too showed some impressive display to dismantle the Austrian-German duo of Julian Knowle and Florian Mayer, 6-4, 6-3.
Madrid runners-up Bopanna and Mergea gave the youngsters a lesson when they grabbed the opening set 6-4, thanks to a single break of serve. The second set too looked to be heading the same way when the Indo-Romanian duo jumped out to a 2-0 advantage,
But the local team came up with some gutsy play to break back and level the score 2-2 in the second set. Breaks of serve were traded again but the experienced Bopanna-Mergea pair dashed all hopes of the crowd by snatching the crucial decisive break for the win.
It was a slightly different story for the Indo-Polish duo of Paes and Matkowski. They had a poor start and trailed Knowle and Mayer for much of the first set before breaking back for 4-4. That freed them up and they went on to take the set 6-4.
After that, they did not take much time as they secured a vital break of serve in the next set for the second round win.
