Divij Sharan and Artem Sitak showed remarkable resilience to come back from two sets down and reach the pre-quarterfinals of the men’s doubles at Wimbledon, while Vishnu Vardhan and N Sriram Balaji’s run came to an end on Friday.
The Indo-New Zealand pair prevailed over Julio Peralta and Horacio Zeballos to win the five-setter thriller 6-7(5), 4-6, 6-3, 7-6(5), 6-4 in a match that lasted three hours and 22 minutes on court number 17.
However, the all Indian pair, who made their main draw debut with an unbeaten run in the qualifiers, went down 6-7 (2), 7-6 (3), 6-7 (3), 3-6 to 14th seeds Ben Mclachlan and Jan-Lennard Struff.
In the earlier match, both pairs had 13 aces but at five, Divij and his partner committed two less double faults than their opponents from Chile and Argentina. They won 22 points on first serve and six points on the second serve in the first set. In the final set, the Indo-Kiwi pair won 14 points on the first serve and six on the second.
Sharan and Sitak had defeated Macedonia’s Radu Albot and Tunisia’s Malek Jaziri 7-6 6-7 6-3 6-2 in the first round. Vardhan and Sriram had defeated New Zealand’s Marcus Daniell and Netherlands’ Wesley Koolhof 7-6, 6-4, 7-6 in their first match.
Sharan, who earlier had a memorable five-set win in the men’s doubles, was knocked out of mixed doubles after a 3-6, 5-7 loss with partner Alicja Rosolska against Matkowski and Buzărnescu.
Sharan is now the only Indian left in contention at the year’s third Grand Slam.