India’s Divij Sharan and his New Zealand partner Artem Sitak made a winning start at the Wimbledon championships as they prevailed over Radu Albot and Malek Jaziri in London on Thursday.
It was also a good outing for 12th seeds Rohan Bopanna and France’s Edouard Roger-Vasselin who defeated the all-Australian pair of Alex de Minaur and John Millman 6-2, 6-2, 6-4 in an hour and 29 minutes. Bopanna and Roger-Vasselin did not face a single break point on their serve while converting five of the 13 opportunities they created on the Australians’ service games.
Sharan and Sitak eked out a 7-6(4) 6-7(8) 6-3 6-2 win in two hours and 41 minutes to book a second round berth. Sharan and Sitak remained solid on their service games as they faced only one break point, which they saved. They broke their opponents thrice in the contest.
Making their Wimbledon debut, N. Sriram Balaji and Vishnu Vardhan defeated New Zealand’s Marcus Daniell and Netherlands’ Wesley Koolhof 7-6, 6-4, 7-6 in a match that lasted 2 hours and 21 minutes.
Meanwhile, Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan and Austin Krajicek went down 6-7(5), 6-7(3), 6-7(2) to Sander Arends and Matwe Middelkoop of Netherlands in the first round.