Press Trust of India
London, July 8: Rohan Bopanna and Florin Mergea knocked out the top-seeded and legendary American twins Mike and Bob Bryan to storm into the men’s doubles semifinals of the Wimbledon championships, here Tuesday evening.
The ninth seeded Indo-Romanian rallied to shock the three-time champions 5-7, 6-4, 7-6 (11-9-), 7-6 (7-5) in a quarterfinal match that lasted 154 minutes.
Bopanna and Mergea hit 31 winners, 17 of which were aces, and saved three of the five breakpoints they faced in the match. They next face fourth seeds Jean-Julien Rojer and Horia Tecau, who overcame seventh seeds Marcin Matkowski and Nenad Zimonjic 6-4, 6-3, 7-6 (7-2) in the other quarterfinal.
Meanwhile, Sania Mirza remained on course to complete her mixed doubles career Slam by reaching the quarterfinals with Brazilian partner Bruno Soares. The second seeds defeated the Croatian pair of Marin Draganja and Ana Konjuh 6-3, 7-6 (7-5), 6-3 in the third round.
India’s challenge ended in the junior singles championships with the defeat of 15th seed Pranjala Yadlapalli. She lost 2-6, 3-6 to American Michaela Gordon in a girls’ singles second round match.
However, there was something to cheer though in the boys’ doubles as Sumit Nagal and his Vietnamese partner Nam Hoang Ly advanced to the second round with 6-4, 7-5 win over Alex de Minaur of Australia and Yosuke Watanuki of Japan.