Sania Mirza and her partner Ivan Dodig (Croatia) moved to the third round of the mixed doubles draw with a 7-6 (5), 6-2 victory over the Japanese pair of Makoto Ninomiya and Yusuke Watanuki at Wimbledon on Saturday.
Rohan Bopanna and his partner Gabriela Dabrowski (Canada) defeated Fabrice Martin (France) and Raluca Olaru (Romania) 7-6 (2), 7-5 in the second round of the mixed doubles draw.
Mirza and Dodig were toe to toe with their opponents in the first set of the match. Both the pairs had converted a break point each before the set went into a tie-breaker.
In the second set, the Indo-Croatian pair raised their game to another level. They didn’t let their opponents serve a single ace and converted two out of three break points to clinch the match.
Bopanna and Dabrowski on the other hand failed to earn a single break point in the first set, before clinching the set in the tie-breaker. However, in the second set, the India-Canada pair had five break points, out of which they converted one.
But, that one break point was enough for them to sail through to a 7-5 win in the second set.
Purav Raja and his Japanese partner Eri Hozumi moved to the second round of mixed doubles after defeating James Cerretani (USA) and Renata Voracova (Czech Republic) 5-7, 6-4, 6-2.
In the first set, the Indo-Japanese pair had four break points, but failed to convert any of them. Thereafter, they ensured that they don’t lose on their serve and comfortably wrapped up the match in 1 hour and 45 minutes.
Earlier in the day, Sania Mirza and her Belgian partner Kirsten Flipkens defeated the British pair of Naomi Broady and Heather Watson in a hard fought encounter to enter the third round of the women's doubles draw. Sania and Kirsten scripted a 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 victory in one hour and 45 minutes.
The 13th seeded Indo-Belgian pair will next meet third seeds Martina Hingis of Switzerland and Yung-Jan Chan of Chinese Taipei for a place in the quarter-finals.
Martina and Chan defeated the unseeded Russian pair of Veronika Kudermetova and Natela Dzalamidze 6-1, 6-3 in the second round.
(With inputs from IANS)
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