Miami Open: Mirza-Hingis cruise; Bopanna-Mergea out
Indian players had contrasting fortunes at the Miami Open on Thursday as the defending women’s doubles champions Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis won their opener while the men’s doubles pair of Rohan Bopanna and Florin Mergea crashed out.
The top seeds Mirza and Hingis hardly faced any resistance from the Spanish-Romanian pair of Lara Arruabarrena and Raluca Olaru as they cruised to a 6-0, 6-4 victory in 59 minutes. In the first set, they were in sublime form and broke their opponents thrice, having themselves not faced a single break point all through the set.
The second set was a more competitive affair as Hingis and Mirza had a few service woes and coughed up three double faults. They were broken twice but they managed to make in-roads into the Spanish-Romanian combine’s serve thrice and clinched the win.
After starting the 2016 season with four titles in Brisbane, Sydney, the Australian Open and St Petersburg, the Indo-Swiss duo saw their incredible 41-match winning streak getting snapped at the Doha quarter-finals. At their next tournament in Indian Wells, the defending champions could not recreate their magic and fell in the second round. They would surely be looking to get back to their winning ways at Miami.
Bopanna-Mergea now on a four-match losing streak
Rohan Bopanna did not enjoy the same fate as Mirza as he and his Romanian partner Florin Mergea squandered a one-set lead to go down 6-2, 4-6, 4-10 to the Spanish-Uruguayan partnership of Marcel Granollers and Pablo Cuevas.
The sixth seeds were broken just once throughout the match compared to two breaks of serve suffered by their unseeded rivals. But it was the match tie-break where Granollers and Cuevas came alive and scooped up some easy points as Bopanna and Mergea had no answer.
After beginning the season on a high by reaching the Sydney final, the Indo-Romanian duo has somehow failed to replicate that result and is now on a four-match losing streak.