Indian tennis star Rohan Bopanna and his Australian partner Matthew Ebden secured a straight-sets win on Monday to reach the quarter-finals of the Australian Open.
The second-seeded Indo-Australian pair beat 14th seeds Wesley Koolhof and Nikola Mektic 7-6 (8), 7-6 (4) in an hour and 41 minutes in their second-round match in Melbourne.
Bopanna and Ebden were slow off the blocks as they squandered a break point in the first game before the Dutch-Croatian pair broke Bopanna’s serve to take a 3-0 lead in the first set. The second seeds then broke Mektic’s serve in the seventh game to bring the set back on serve.
Bopanna and Ebden prevailed 10-8 in the tie-break to take the first set.
In the second set, Bopanna was broken first once again. However, Koolhof and Mektic could not capitalise on their break as Bopanna and Ebden broke Mektic’s serve in the eighth game as the set went into another tie-break.
Bopanna came up with two incredible winners to take a 3-0 lead in the tie-break. Though Koolhof and Mektic tried to fightback, the three-point gap proved to be insurmountable as Bopanna and Ebden secured their passage into the quarter-finals.
Bopanna and Ebden, who are chasing a first men’s doubles Grand Slam title together, will next face the sixth-seeded Argentinian pair of Maximo Gonzalez and Andres Molteni in the quarter-finals.
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