The sixth seeded men’s doubles pair of Rohan Bopanna and Matthew Ebden made it through to the quarter-final at Wimbledon on Tuesday. The Indo-Australian duo had to work hard to beat the team of Dutchman David Pel and American Reese Stalder 7-5, 4-6, 7-6 (5) in a match that lasted two hours and 19 minutes.
This is the first time Bopanna has reached the quarter-final at Wimbledon since he made it to that stage in the mixed doubles event in 2017. Ebden, meanwhile, is the defending men’s doubles champion.
Both teams managed to hold serve until the 11th game, when Stalder was broken, and Ebden finished off the set comfortably.
It seemed that the higher ranked team was on their way to the quarter-final, but the scratch team, who had beaten 11th seed Nicolas Mahut and Lloyd Glasspool in the previous round, took the second set after breaking Bopanna’s serve to love in the 10th game.
Neither team would budge in the deciding set, with both saving three break points each.
In the super-tiebreaker though, Ebden and 43-year-old Bopanna’s experience guided them through, winning the breaker 10-5 to go through to the next round.
This was the second time the pair needed a third set tie-break to decide a match. In the opening round, they played the all-Argentine pair of Guillermo Duran and Tomas Etcheverry and came out 6-2, 6-7 (5), 7-6 (8) winners. The second round was a bit more straight-forward, as they beat British wildcard pair of Jacob Fearnley and Johannus Monday 7-5, 6-3.
In the quarter-final, Bopanna and Ebden will face the Dutch pairing of Tallon Griekspoor and Bart Stevens.
A win there will give Bopanna his first semi-final appearance at Wimbledon since 2015.