Indians in action at Wimbledon on Saturday had a field day, registering wins right from women’s doubles to the opening round of the junior girls’ singles. Here’s a quick recap of the Indian results on day six at the Championships:
Sania Mirza powers through
The Indian No 1 powered her way through, starting off the day’s campaign with a win in the women’s doubles second round, before ending it similarly by winning her mixed doubles second round match.
Mirza and her partner Kirsten Flipkens fought past the British duo of Naomi Broady and Heather Watson 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 in an hour an 45 minutes. The Indo-Belgian pair won 65% of their first serves to the Britons’ winning 74%, and won a distinctly better 66% points on their second serves to Broady and Watson’s winning 52%. The 13th seeds finished the match with 91 points to the Britons’ 87.
In the mixed doubles, Mirza and her Croatian partner Ivan Dodig won against the Japanese team of Makoto Ninomiya and Yusuke Watanuki in straight sets. Mirza and Dodig won 7-6(5), 6-2 in 78 minutes. The fourth seeded Indo-Croat team wrapped up the match with 14 winners and just the four unforced errors to their opponents’ five winners and three unforced errors. They ended up with a total of 74 points for the match, 15 more than their Japanese opponents.
Rohan Bopanna and Purav Raja make inroads
The tenth seeded Indo-Canadian team of Rohan Bopanna and Gabriela Dabrowski reached the pre-quarter-finals of mixed doubles with a win over the French-Romanian pair of Fabrice Martin and Raluca Olaru. Bopanna and Dabrowski won in straight sets, 7-6(2), 7-5 in 81 minutes, winning 74 points to their opponents’ 67.
Meanwhile, Purav Raja and his Japanese partner Eri Hozumi defeated the American-Czech pair of James Cerretani and Renata Voracova in their first round encounter that was played across two days – Friday and Saturday. Raja and Hozumi prevailed 5-7, 6-4, 6-2, with a total of 103 points to Cerretani and Voracova’s 89.
Zeel Desai leads Indian juniors’ charge
India’s top-ranked junior girls player Zeel Desai came through her opening round in the junior girls event at Wimbledon against Japan’s Naho Sato. Desai won in straight sets 6-1, 6-1. She converted seven of the 13 break points. The fifteenth seed won a total of 67 points to Sato’s 39, and will next face a fellow 18-year-old in Russia’s Marta Paigini.