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In a tale of contrasting fortunes for two of India’s top doubles players, Leander Paes won while Rohan Bopanna bowed out of the men’s doubles competition at the 2017 US Open Tennis Championships at New York on Friday. The evergreen Indian legend Paes, who has newly teamed up with compatriot Purav Raja, had an absolutely hassle-free outing in their opener and comfortably beat the Serbian pair of Viktor Troicki and Janko Tipsarevic, 6-1, 6-3 to advance to the second round.
The 10th seeded combine of Bopanna and Pablo Cuevas of Uruguay, meanwhile, squandered a one-set advantage to go down to the former Australian Open winners Fabio Fognini and Simone Bolelli, 5-7, 6-4, 6-4 in an hour and 47 minutes.
Bopanna had been in good form of late
Bopanna’s result was especially disappointing as the 37-year-old had come to the final Major of the year with a lot of momentum. Alongside Ivan Dodig, the Indian had reached the final at the Montreal Masters where they lost to Nicolas Mahut and Pierre-Hugues Herbert in a match-deciding tie-break.
Bopanna and Dodig carried that form into the Cincinnati Masters the very next week where they made it to the quarter-finals.
A good run at New York was thus expected from the Indian, who has been a runner-up at the US Open in 2010.
The big difference between the pairs of Bopanna/Cuevas and Fognini/Bolelli on Friday was that the Italians were flawless on break points, converting all four of the chances they got. The Indo-Uruguayan combine, on the other hand, earned just 60% success having made use of just three out of their five break points.
Bopanna still has one more golden opportunity to win a US Open title when he begins his mixed doubles campaign alongside Canada’s Gabriela Dabrowski. The two, who won the French Open this year, are seeded seventh and have tricky first round opponents in the form of Heather Watson and Henri Kontinen. The latter won the Wimbledon title in 2016 and made it to the final at SW19 this year.
Paes and Raja bounce back
Paes and Raja had teamed up in the build-up to the US Open but did not have an auspicious start as a team. The all-Indian pair succumbed to an opening round defeat at the Winston-Salem Open just a week back.
The duo bounced back in style at the US Open, making quite a statement with that one-sided win over Troicki and Tipsarevic. While they converted 40% of their break points, they conceded none.
Paes and Raja next face the young all-Russian team of Karen Khachanov and Andrey Rublev.
