US Open: Bopanna crashes out of mixed doubles quarters

IANS
Bopanna (pictured here with Sania Mirza at the Olympics) had been leading with partner Gabriela Dabrowski

New York, Sep 5 (IANS) India's Rohan Bopanna and his Canadian partner Gabriela Dabrowski went down fighting in the quarter-finals of the mixed doubles competition at the US Open tennis tournament here on Monday.

Bopanna and Gabriela enjoyed a strong start before going down 6-1, 2-6, 8-10 to Robert Farah of Columbia and Germany's Anna-Lena Groenefeld in 58 minutes.

Farah and Groenefeld will now take on the winners of the last eight clash between the seventh seeded American duo of Coco Vandeweghe and Rajeev Ram and the Czech-Crotian combination of Barbora Krejcikova and Marin Draganja.

In the opening set, the first three games went with the seve until Bopanna and Gabriela clinched a service break to take a 3-1 lead.

They then held their serve before forcing consecutive service breaks to win the first set.

Farah and Groenefeld staged a strong comeback in the second set, breaking their opponents in the fourth game to take the upper hand. The earned another service break in the eigth game to win the second set and draw level.

In the tie-breaker, the Indo-Canadian combination started strongly, taking a 4-0 lead before Farah and Groenefeld won four consecutive points to draw level.

Bopanna and Gabriela regained the lead at 7-5 but Farah and Groenefeld fought back, winning three points on the trot to take the lead.

Although Bopanna and Gabriela levelled the score once again, Farah and Groenefeld won back-to-back points to wrap up the issue.