The top Indian doubles players had mixed fortunes on Wednesday at the 2016 French Open as Sania Mirza entered the mixed doubles quarter-finals but Leander Paes and Rohan Bopanna crashed out of men’s doubles in the last-eight stage.
The 16th seeded Paes and Marcin Matkowski were involved in a tense first set with the fifth-seeded Bryan Brothers in their quarter-final. They traded breaks and the set headed to a tight tie-break where the American twins edged past them narrowly, 7-6(12).
The Indo-Polish pair, however, could not sustain that level of fight in the second set and lost the match, 6(12)-7, 3-6.
The sixth-seeded Bopanna and his Romanian partner Florin Mergea too had the same fate. They were up against the third seeds and defending champions Ivan Dodig and Marcelo Melo to whom they lost 4-6, 4-6. The ability to convert break points made all the difference in this clash. While the Brazilian-Croatian combine broke Bopanna and Mergea once in each set, the sixth seeds could not convert any of their five break points.
Later Dodig helped Sania Mirza secure a thrilling 6(6)-7, 6-4, 10-8 second round win over the French combine of Alize Cornet and Jonathan Eysseric. It was a pulsating match in which the lesser accomplished local team took the lead in a see-saw first set.
But Mirza and Dodig fought back to level the contest. The match tie-break was a very close affair in which the second seeds held their nerves to clinch the win.
Karman Thandi progresses in doubles, exits singles
In junior competition, India’s 17-year-old Karman Thandi entered the second round of girls’ doubles but lost her Round 2 of girls’ singles. Thandi, who has teamed up with Australia’s Jaimee Fourlis, upset the third-seeded Russians Amina Anshba and Elena Rybakina, 6-4, 6-3.
In singles, she lost to the fifth seed Dayana Yastremska, 3-6, 0-6.
