Capping off a great day for India, both Rohan Bopanna and Sania Mirza advanced to the next round in their respective events at the US Open tennis championships.
In the women’s doubles event, Sania and her Chinese partner Peng Shuai defeated the Slovakian team of Jana Cepelova and Magdalena Rybarikova in a tightly contested match that went on for over two hours.
Playing in front of a capacity crowd consisting of many Indians, the duo squandered a 5-1 lead in the first set, ultimately losing it in a tiebreak. They bounced back in the second set, breaking the Slovakians at 4-3, holding on good at 5 and breaking back to win the set 6-3. They went on a flying start in the deciding set, quickly moving to 5-1 after a couple of breaks, closing it at 6-7, 6-3, 6-3.
They will play Sorana Cirstea and Sara Sorribes Tormo in the next round.
Bopanna was playing the first round of the mixed doubles event with his Canadian partner Gabriela Dabrowski. The duo defeated the English-Finnish Heather Watson and Henri Kontinen 6-4, 4-6, 13-11.
Bopanna and Dabrowski lost to Watson and Kontinen in the quarterfinal of Wimbledon earlier this year. They will meet the Spanish-American duo of María Jose Martinez Sanchez and Nicholas Monroe in the next round.