ATP Barcelona: Rohan Bopanna and Edouard Roger-Vasselin lose a thriller in quarter-finals
Rohan Bopanna and Edouard Roger-Vasselin squandered multiple match points to go down to Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah in a thrilling quarter-final at the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell in Barcelona, Spain on Wednesday. The Indo-French combine was beaten 6-4, 6-7(9), 11-13 by the 2018 Australian Open runners-up in 1 hour 57 minutes at this ATP 500 tournament.
Bopanna and Roger-Vasselin had a couple of match points in the second set and one more in the match tie-break, none of which they could convert.
The unseeded Colombians thus avenged their quarter-final defeat to the Indo-French pair at the Monte Carlo Masters last week. Cabal and Farah could not manage a set in their clash at the Principality.
The statistics were pretty close for the two teams, indicating how hard-fought this was. While Bopanna and Roger-Vasselin won 66% of their total service points, the Colombians won 67%. In returns, the latter were again slightly better as they grabbed 34% of the points to Bopanna and Roger-Vasselin’s 33%.
In the first set, the Indian and his French partner dictated the terms and won it by dint of a solitary service break. In the second set, they exchanged a break of serve before pushing the set to a tie-break.
Bopanna and Roger-Vasselin caused a huge upset in the first round at Barcelona when they sent the 2017 Australian Open champions Henri Kontinen and John Peers packing in straight sets.
Indians lose in Budapest
The 38-year-old Coorg native was not the only Indian to lose on Wednesday. The Indian challenge came to an end at the Hungarian Open -- an ATP 250 event -- in Budapest with twin defeats.
Purav Raja and Fabrice Martin fought for 1 hour 44 minutes before succumbing to a 6-4, 6-7(3), 7-10 defeat to local combine of Attila Balazs and Marton Fucsovics in the first round. Divij Sharan too failed to cross the first hurdle as he and Neal Skupski were outplayed 2-6, 3-6 by Marcin Matkowski and Nicholas Monroe.