Sania Mirza and Shuai Peng came from 0-4 down in the third set to win. (Source: File)
Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna advanced at the US Open on Sunday after winning their respective matches in the women’s doubles and mixed doubles categories. However, there was curtains for the only Indian men’s doubles pairing of Leander Paes and Purav Raja on the seventh day of the final Grand Slam of the year.
Sania Mirza, Shuai Peng took two hours and 18 minutes to get the better of Sorana Cirstea/Sara Sorribes Tormo 6-2, 3-6, 7-6 on the Grandstand court. The Indo-Chinese pairing won their third round match over the Romanian-Spanish team in dramatic fashion to come from 0-4 down in the third set. This had the Cirstea-Tormo team winning eight games in a row before Mirza and Peng began a fantastic comeback. If that wasn’t enough test of nerves, in the 12th game, Mirza/Peng saved two match points to force a deciding tiebreak.
In the tiebreak, they raced off to a 5-0 lead before dropping serve twice to extend the contest. However, they had enough advantage and lead to even let a match point go to win 7-2 in the tiebreak. They will now face the winner of Timea Babos-Andrea Hlavackova and Su-Wei Hsieg-Monica Niculescu.
The French Open champions Rohan Bopanna and Gabriela Dabrowski too continued their winning march in straightforward fashion. They posted a 6-3, 6-4 win over Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez-Nicholas Monroe. They will now take on third seeds Hao-Ching Chan-Michael Venus in the quarterfinals.
Meanwhile there were exits for the men’s doubles combine of Leander Paes and Purav Raja who joined forces to qualify for the tournament. They lost in straight sets to Karen Khachanov and Andrey Rublev in the men’s doubles second round.
There was equal disappointment for youngster Siddhant Banthia who lost 1-6, 2-6 in the boy’s singles first round at Flushing Meadows.
