India’s top-ranked doubles player Rohan Bopanna and his teen partner Denis Shapovalov continued their strong run together reaching the quarter-finals of the Miami Open.
The Indo-Canadian pair knocked out seventh seeds Croatia’s Nikola Mektic and Spain’s Marcel Granollers 6-1, 6-2 in just 52 minutes. The duo had joined forces at the first ATP Masters 1000 of the season at Indian Wells, where they lost in the second round to Novak Djokovic and Fabio Fognini.
The unseeded pair had beaten Austin Krajicek and Artem Sitak 7-5, 2-6, 10-6 in the first round, rallying in the tiebreak. Their quarter-finals opponents will be decided later tonight, taking on the winners of the match between third seeds Bob and Mike Bryan and Nicolas Jarry and Franko Skugor.
Shapovalov, who is the 20th seed in singles, will also play his second round match singles match against Andrey Rublev.
Elsewhere, India’s Sriram Balaji and Mexican partner Hach Verdugo finished as the runners-up at the Zhangjiagang Challenger in China. They went down 2-6, 6-7(5) to Max Purcell and Luke Saville in the final. They had earlier stunned top seeds Cheng-Peng Hseih and Christopher Rungkat 6-4, 6-3 reach the final.
Vijay Sundar Prashanth and Russian partner Alexander Igoshin of Russia won the doubles title at the $15,000 ITF men’s futures in Bahrain. The top seeds beat Jesper De Jong and Sidane Pontiodikroma 6-7(5), 7-6(5), 10-8.
