Sania is in mixed doubles quarters

London, July 3: India had a good day in office as Rohan Bopanna secured a quarterfinal berth while Sania Mirza too sealed a place in the last-eight stage with their respective partners in the mixed doubles competition at the Wimbledon here on Wednesday.

However, Mahesh Bhupathi’s campaign ended after losing a fiercely-fought men’s doubles quarterfinal along with partner Julian Knowle to top seeded American twins Mike and Bob Bryan 6-7 (5), 6-7 (3), 6-7 (4).

While Bopanna and his Chinese partner Jie Zheng overcame the fighting Swedish-Hungarian duo of Johan Brunstrom and Katalin Marosi 7-6(4) 3-6 61, Sania and Horia Tecau of Romania posted a comfortable 6-1 7-5 win over Eric Butorac of USA and Alize Cornet of France.

For Leander Paes, it was a mixed day as he advanced to the men’s doubles semifinals with Czech Radek Stepanek but suffered a tame defeat in the mixed doubles with Chinese partner Saisai Zheng. Paes and Stepanek, seeded fourth, carved out a 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, 6-4 win over 11th seeded Julien Benneteau of France and Nenad Zimonjic of Serbia.

In the mixed doubles, 15th seventh seeds Paes and Zheng, lost 3-6, 3-6 to unseeded AmericanFrench combo of Eric Butorac and Alize Cornet.

The seventh seeded Bopanna and Zheng took a little less than an hour and a half to get the better of their opponents.

Bopanna had earlier sealed a spot in his first ever Wimbledon semifi-

Rohan Bopanna too made the mixed doubles quarterfinal with his Chinese partner Jie Zheng. Leander Paes advanced to the men’s doubles semifinals but lost in the mixed doubles with Chinese partner Saisai Zheng

nals with French partner Edouard Roger-Vasselin in the men’s doubles.

Sania and her Romanian partner outplayed the French-American pair in exactly an hour.

They will next face eighth seeded Daniel Nestor and Kristina Mladenovic, who defeated Aisam Qureshi and Cara Black, seeded 10th, 3-6, 6-3, 6-2.

Sania and Tecau had an easy outing in the opening set where they converted two out of their three break points to run away with the set in just 17 minutes.

In the second set, their opponents posed some threat, but in the end it proved to be a cake-walk for the Indo-Romanian combination.

On Wednesday night the eighth-seeded Bhupathi and Knowle fought their hearts out before bowing out against one of the best doubles teams in the world. — PTI