No trouble for Sania, Paes; Bops advances after tough test
It turned out to be a good day in office for the Indians at Roland Garros as both Leander Paes and Sania Mirza won their men’s and women’s doubles matches with respective partners to enter the third round of the French Open, here on Friday.
Rohan Bopanna and Florin Mergea faced a tough test but the ninth seeds ultimately prevailed 3-6, 6-3, 7-5 over Americans Donald Young and Austin Krajicek in the second round.
Paes and his Canadian partner Daniel Nestor defeated the German-Austrian pair of Andre Begemann and Julian Knowle in straight sets. The 10th seeded Indo-Canadian pair made short work of Begemann-Knowle winning 7-6 (3) 6-2.
Top seeds Sania and her Swiss partner Martina Hingis defeated the local pair of Stepahnie Foretz and Amandine Hesse 6-3 6-4 in only 65 minutes.
In the match featuring Paes, the first set saw both pairs trade a break each, it went to the tiebreaker where the fancied 10th seeds brought on all their experience into play winning it at 3.
The second set was a virtual cakewalk as the winners got a double break straightaway in the second and fourth games to lead 4-0 as the German-Austrian pair couldn’t comeback despite winning a couple of service. The highlight of Paes and Nestor’s performance was the successful conversion of 82 percent of their first serve.
They finally won the match on the eighth game to progress to the next round along with the Bryan brothers, Mike and Bob.
For Sania and Hingis, it wasn’t a tough as they broke the French pair in the eighth game and followed it up by holding their serve to take the first set 6-3.
The Indo-Swiss pair started the second set well as they took a 1-0 lead breaking the opposition serve. However Foretz-Hesse broke even to make it 3-3. But the decisive break happened in the ninth game which they won and served for the match without much difficulty.