India had a mixed day at the French Open on Sunday with Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna, and their respective partners, reaching the quarterfinals of the mixed doubles draw, which put them on collision course.
However, the rest of the Indian challenge came to an end with Bopanna and the Indian pair of Purav Raja and Divij Sharan losing in the men’s doubles. The two Indian juniors in the fray, Abhimanyu Vannemreddy and Zeel Desai, also went down in the first round.
Sania Mirza and her Croatian partner Ivan Dodig, who were the runners-up at the Australian Open this year, notched a commanding win in the pre-quarterfinals. The second-seeded duo beat Elina Svitolina of Ukraine and New Zealand’s Artem Sitak 6-2, 6-4.
Rohan Bopanna and Canada’s Gabriela Dabrowski also won their second-round encounter against the French duo of Chloe Paquet and Benoit Paire. The seventh seeds won 6-3, 6-2 to set up a quarters clash with Sania-Dodig.
Men’s doubles, junior challenge ends
However, Bopanna, partnering Uruguayan Pablo Cuevas, crashed out of the men’s doubles event after losing to fifth seeds Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares. The Brit-Brazlian pair won 6-7, 2-6 in the third round match.
The Indian men’s doubles duo of Purav Raja and Divij Sharan lost their third round match to Ryan Harrison (USA) and Michael Venus (New Zealand) 6-4, 6-7, 2-6, edniong their good run at Roland Garros so far.
In the juniors section, Zeel Desai lost her girls’ singles opening round match to Daniela Vismane of Latvia 0-6 2-6. In boys’ singles Abhimanyu Vannemreddy, who qualified for the main darw after winning the Rendez-vous event in Paris, went down his opening round match against Clement Tabur of France 0-6 1-6.
