 | « Back to article | Print this article |
Mahesh Bhupathi, Rohan Bopanna and Sania Mirza advanced to the second round of doubles events at Wimbledon on Wednesday.
Bopanna and his French partner Edouard Roger-Vasselin, who are seeded 14th, defeated Finland's Jarkko Nieminen and Dmitry Tursunov of Russia 7-6, 2-6, 7-6 in their men's doubles opener.
Bhupathi and his partner Julian Knowle beat Leonardo Mayer and Alberto Ramos to also move to the second round of the men's doubles while the sixth seed Indo-US pair of Sania and Liezel Huber put paid to the hopes of Czech Republic's Renata Voracova and Klara Zakopalova in the women's doubles.
The eighth seed Indo-Austrian pair of Bhupathi/Knowle scored a 6-2, 6-7(5), 6-4, 6-2 win over the unseeded Argentine-Spanish combination in two hours and 37 minutes.
Bhupathi and Knowle did not face break-point in any of the sets except the second when they dropped serve twice.
They also broke in the second set which was decided by a tie-breaker.
Bhupathi and Knowle will now lock horns with American Nicholas Monroe and Germany's Simon Stadler, who had beaten the debutante Indian pair of Divij Sharan and Purav Raja.
In the women's doubles, Sania and Huber got the better of Voracova and Zakopalova 6-3, 3-6, 6-1 to book a berth in the second round.
Image: Mahesh Bhupathi