French Open: Paes, Bopanna ousted in men's doubles; Sania advances (Roundup)

Indian stars Leander Paes and Rohan Bopanna were knocked out with their partners in the quarter-finals of the men's doubles while Sania Mirza cruised in the mixed doubles quarters of the French Open tennis tournament here on Wednesday.

The third-seeded pair of Croatia's Ivan Dodig and Brazil's Marcelo Melo defeated sixth seeds Bopanna and his Romanian partner Florin Mergea 6-4, 6-4 in an hour and 15 minutes to progress to the semi-finals of the tournament.

The fifth seeded American pair of Bob Bryan and his brother Mike outclassed the 16th seeded Paes and his Polish partner Marcin Matkowski 7-6 (12), 6-3 in one hour and 39 minutes in the quarters to enter the last four stage.

The second seeded Sania and her mixed doubles partner Ivan Dodig of Croatia defeated the French pair of Alize Cornet and Jonathan Eysseric 6-7 (6), 6-4, 10-8 in one hour and 40 minutes in the second round to enter the quarter-finals in style.

The match between Dodig-Melo and Bopanna-Mergea began on a positive note for both sides as they won their service games to make it 3-3. But Dodig-Melo broke their opponents' serve at a crucial juncture of the set to grab the advantage.

The third seeds made the best use of the advantage to win all their serves thereafter to claim the first set 6-4.

In the second set, the Croatian-Brazilian combine dominated the proceedings and broke Bopanna-Mergea yet again to seize the initiative and went on to win the set 6-4 and claim the match.

On the other hand, Paes and Matkowski got off to a positive start against the formidable Bryan brothers. Both sides displayed their best winning individual games and broke their opponent once each to take the set to 6-6. The set then went into the tie-breaker.

The tie-breaker saw a intense battle and the set was eventually decided when the Bryan brothers edged past their opponents, beating them 14-12 to take 1-0 lead.

In the second set, it was a one-sided affair as fifth seeds Bob and Mike broke Paes and Matkowski's serve twice to grab the set 6-3 and comfortably cruise into the last four stage.

Later on in the day, Sania and her partner Dodig fought well in a see-saw battle which went on to be decided in the tie-break where the French pair won 8-6.

But the second seeded pair of Sania and Dodig came back strongly in the second set to win two break points to eventually win the set 6-4 and level things up at 1-1.

The match then went into a super tie-breaker, where Sania and Dodig held their nerves by playing sensibly to win it 10-8 to finally make it to the quarters.

--IANS

ac/ajb/vt