India’s Rohan Bopanna along with his Chinese partner Jie Zheng became the first pair to enter the Wimbledon mixed doubles quarterfinals after defeating unseeded Swedish-Hungarian duo of Johan Brunstrom and Katalin Marosi 7-6(4), 3-6, 6-1 on Wednesday.
The seventh-seeded Asian combo took a little less than an hour and a half to get the better of their opponents. Bopanna and Zheng hit 19 winners as compared to just 12 by their Swedish-Hungarian rivals.
After winning the first set in a tie-breaker, Bopanna and Zheng lost the second as their opponents converted one of the two break points they got, while the Asians failed to make use of either of the two they recieved.
However, the Indo-Chinese pair got their act together in the third and deciding set and they completely dominated proceedings.
Bopanna and Zheng broke their opponents twice and let them take only one game out of seven to warp the match in their favour.
Meanwhile, second seeds Sania Mirza, partnering Romanian Horia Tecau, thrashed the American-French duo of Eric Butorac and Alize Cornet 6-1, 7-5 in exactly an hour to reach the quarterfinals.
Bhupathi’s campaign comes to an end
Mahesh Bhupathi’s Wimbledon campaign ended after losing the fiercely-fought men’s doubles quarterfinal along with partner Julian Knowle to top-seeded American twins Mike and Bob Bryan, here.
The eighth-seeded Indo-Austrian pair fought their hearts out before bowing out with a 6-7(5), 6-7(3), 6-7(4) scoreline against one of the best doubles teams in the world.
Bhupathi had already exited from the mixed doubles with Slovakian partner Daniela Hantuchova.