Rohan Bopanna and his Indonesian partner Aldila Sutjiadi are through to the second round of the mixed doubles event at the US Open after a straight-sets win on Thursday night.
The Indo-Indonesian duo were up against Germany’s Andreas Mies and Russian Vera Zvonareva and came up with a 7-5, 6-2 win to move to the next round.
The first set remained tight, but Bopanna and Sutjiadi managed to get the deciding break at the crucial moment when Zvonareva was serving at 5-6.
In the second set, Bopanna and Sutjiadi built on the momentum to break Mies twice. Though Sutjiadi’s serve was also broken, they finished the match by getting the better of the Russian’s serve again.
In the next round, they will play the winners of the match between fourth seeded pair of Luisa Stefani of Brazil and British player Joe Salisbury, or the all-American duo of Taylor Townsend and Ben Shelton.
Bopanna is now the only Indian player left in the draw at the US Open – he also made it to the second round in men’s doubles.
Yuki Bhambri and Brazilian partner Marcelo Demoliner lost to the Poland’s Jan Zielinski and Monaco’s Hugo Nys 3-6, 5-7.
Later, Saketh Myneni and Russian partner Aslan Karatsev were beaten 7-6(4), 3-6, 2-6 by Switzerland’s Marc-Andrea Huesler and Serbian player Laslo Djere.