Bopanna advances at Rome Masters, Sania-Hingis enter quarters

ROME: Rohan Bopanna made it to the second round of the Rome Masters after scoring fluent victory with his partner Florin Mergea.
Coming into this event after the Madrid Masters title win, Bopanna and his Romanian partner tamed the Argentine combo of Leonardo Mayer and Juan Monaco 6-3, 6-4 in the opening round of the Euro 3,830,295 ATP event.
Bopanna and Mergea called the shots from the word go, building up a healthy 5-1 lead but Mayer and Monaco reduced the deficit with a gritty fight.
Serving for the opening set, Bopanna committed a double fault to be down 30-40 but he saved the break chance with an ace and wrapped the set after 29 minutes of play.
There was better fight in the second set but eventually the Indo-Romanian pair prevailed, thanks to an early break which stayed with them.
For a place in the quarterfinals, they will fight it with third seeded team of Dutch player Jean-Julien Rojer and Romania’s Horia Tecau.
Indo-Swiss tennis combine of Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis notched a straight sets win over the Romanian pair of Irina-Camelia Begu and Monica Niculescu to enter the Rome Masters women’s doubles quarterfinals.
The top seeds took just one hour and three minutes to win the second round match 6-4, 6-1 on the clay courts of Foro Italico late on Tuesday.
World No.1 Sania and Martina were broken four times in the match but won seven break points to their advantage.
They totally dominated their Romanian opponents by winning 58 of the 94 points played. (Agencies)