Leander Paes and Martina Hingis entered the mixed doubles semifinals while Sania Mirza and Bruno Soares crashed out in the quarterfinals here on Thursday.
While seventh-seeded Paes and Hingis brushed aside the unseeded Polish-Russian combination of Marcin Matkowski and Elina Vesnina 6-2, 6-1 in just 44 minutes, Sania and Soares of Brazil, the second seeds, were stunned 6-3, 6-7(8), 7-9 by fifth seeds Alexander Peya of Austria and Timea Babos of Hungary in a two-hour 21-minute contest.
Bopanna & Mergea lose It was also curtains for Rohan Bopanna and his Romanian partner Florin Mergea who lost a marathon five-setter against fourth-seeded Dutch-Romanian pair of Jean Julien-Rojer and Horia Tecau in the men’s doubles quarterfinals.
Julien-Rojer and Tecau won 4-6, 6-2, 6-3, 4-6, 13-11 in a contest that lasted three hours and 23 minutes. In 2013, Bopanna had lost a marathon five-set semifinal, his teammate back then being Julien-Rojer, who ended up on the winning side this time.
The final set turned out to be a battle of patience, with both pairs holding serve for 23 games. It was only in the 24th game of the fifth set that the Indo-Romanian pair was broken, and went on to lose.
The match started with Bopanna being broken in the very first game but Mergea’s sizzling returns saw the two break back. The pair also broke Tecau to take the first set at 6-4.
In the second, the Dutch-Romanian duo made a double break and clinched the set 6-2. In the third, Bopanna and Mergea were broken once and lost the set 3-6. Though the two stormed back to win the fourth, they lost the fifth 13-11.
