Sania-Bopanna make quarters

Indian duo staves off tough test from Australian pairing of Peer-Stosur

 Forging power and finesse into an effective weapon, Rohan Bopanna and Sania Mirza scripted a battling win over Australia’s John Peers and Samantha Stosur to enter the quarterfinals of the Olympic Games mixed doubles tennis event on Thursday.

Sania and Bopanna, seeded fourth, had to wait for more than 24 hours for their match to kick off because of rain on Wednesday. When it finally started in cool and windy conditions at the Olympic Tennis Centre, the Indian duo faced strong resistance from the Aussies before prevailing 7-5, 6-4.

Sania and Bopanna had to really work hard to find a breakthrough in the first set, with Stosur standing out with her net play and placements and Peers serving steadily and strongly. Even winning a point on the Aussie serve seemed hard initially but the Indians slowly worked their way into the match and once they won the first set, the fight ebbed out of the Aussies.

The reward for the Indians will be another testing encounter, against Britain’s Andy Murray and Heather Watson. The British duo got in only because Romania’s Monica Niculescu and Florian Mergea pulled out at the last minute. In fact, Watson was on way to the airport when she was called back to national duty and they defeated David Ferrer and Carla Suarez Navarro of Spain 6-3, 6-3. For the record, Murray had won the mixed doubles silver medal with Laura Robson in London 2012.

“There is always room for improvement, we can play better, we have to play better, hopefully we will,” said Sania as the one-hour 13-minute first round match ended. Bopanna too was happy to get the first match out of the way.

“We didn’t have much idea how they play but as the match progressed we were able to put a lot of pressure on their serves,” said the Bengalurean, who produced some delectable half-volley pick-ups to keep India afloat early on.

Opportunity knocked twice on the Indian doors in the first set. After the early struggles, they broke Peers’ serve in the ninth game for a 5-4 lead but the Aussies broke right back, as Bopanna struggled with his serve.

The Indians then grabbed the second chance, putting pressure on Stosur’s serve and forcing errors from the veteran. At 6-5, Sania and Bopanna showed great determination to rebuff the Aussie threat and wrap up the set, with Peers netting a forehand return on set point.

The Aussie resolve was not quite the same in the second set. Peers cracked again in the fifth game, serving a double fault on breakpoint to hand a vital break to the Indians. Bopanna had problems with his serve in the very next game, serving two double faults but he struck them well when it mattered to keep his team ahead.

With the games going on serves, the rangy Indian then served out the set superbly in the tenth game, firing three aces to wrap up the contest. Bopanna and Sania are the only seeds remaining in the draw now.

Top seeds Nicolas Mahut and Caroline Garcia of France crashed out, losing to Marcelo Melo and Teliana Pereira of Brazil 7-6, 7-6 while the second seeds Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Kristina Mladenovic of France also crashed, beaten 4-6, 6-3 (8-10) to Roberta Vinci and Fabio Fognini of Italy. Third seeds Rafael Nadal and Garbine Muguruza of Spain gave a walkover to Lucie Hradecka and Radek Stepanek of the Czech Republic, to allow Nadal to focus on his singles and doubles quests.